1 15 4 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/259dfdc2b40154ee7d595b096bc75416.mp3?Expires=1792627200&Signature=O-9dhg8qSdP8HgxMZ87z1kn4YNEZsUCFoyH6dBHjXpn0j55NmEPwOrvKUFCzA3QaEbUXb72M%7ET8c1Rv1J0J5unvy7vc7ayOyXq0t5do0Gg3-bu7Zpt0kv3DcPtsLfcVi1%7E5rRapIuiTYQcvwHcmMKqckZa6Ua8mFd741tHig16e-TxGwx0ksAZXmArTMishtXRZHulxygmbOGaYTHePiBTSKDTDqWkhBR7t7veygnf2caEAtfjjnZrEaFuBDiNk6fsOil9aKdcgFqSFhF4DiluU19yttR-TEVDJqDKn7qBAhq47J%7EiCh1mhOPJo0LRKkHxVBsegHZkgcjOa1GzVjZA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 22347eb8961a417a7edcdd6cb847f196 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ben Anketell, Recording 1 of 2 PDF Text Text MARIE WADE: Interview with Mr. Ben Anketell. His address is 3424 Amity Avenue. He first came to this country in 1904 and has lived here ever since. The name of the person doing the interview is Marie Wade. BEN ANKETELL: [00:00:30] I was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, about 12 miles [inaudible] [00:01:00] Dad came out here in the spring of 1904, and they were building a sugar factory up there on the north side. I don't think he went to work there. He did something else. I don't know just what, but at one time he was involved in a bakery downtown. His mother said no farms. He lived on a farm [00:01:30] in Wisconsin and also in Minnesota. Farming in those days for women was a pretty lonesome job, so she didn't want to farm, so he stayed out of that. But anyway, then in 1905, he got involved in the butcher business, and that was in that from then on until 1930. We lived on the north side on 13th and 4th Street North. Little little [00:02:00] house that Dad bought $1,500 when he first came out here. Sent for us. Mother rented a freight car and loaded all her stuff in it and shipped it west. A lot of it I've still got over here in the museum. I had two sisters, and they started a school in the old [00:02:30] Lakeview School building, which was, I think about 1907, was condemned. Six or seven. And they tore it down and built the center section of the modern present building. I started school there in 1908. And I had two first grades when I started school there. Mrs. Wiles taught one and [00:03:00] Mrs. Wolf the other one. And then we got into the fourth grade. They had two little buildings out on the corner of 13th and 6th. And that fourth grade was in one of them, fifth grade in the other one. And I went back, went upstairs in Lakeview's at the sixth grade, [00:03:30] and the seventh and eighth. Mrs. Nolten was principal and Mrs. Hanford was assistant. We graduated in the mid-year. They didn't know what to do with us, so they took us over to Kenwood and they started what they called a junior high. And they taught us ancient history and general science and algebra. [00:04:00] We had one of the subjects. Anyhow, I passed, just barely I guess, and went out to high school in 1918. Took the same thing over again and flunked. I quit school in April and never went back. I went out in April with a [00:04:30] survey crew out of Boise, a six-mule team. One out out of Boise, a six-mule team. One out with two wagons and a four-horse team with one wagon with hay and grain and odds and ends of stuff. The of stuff. The other wagon had her groceries and bedrolls and all that sort of stuff. We went down into bedrolls and We went down into below Albion somewhere and surveyed some country that's been surveyed [00:05:00] 30 years before. And a lot of the surveys or the surveys markers they had at that time were so many notches on a rock and a pile of earth sometimes with this charred stake. Sometimes we couldn't find them at all and some of them we found rolled down the hill for 50-60 yards. We put in iron posts with a brass plaque on top of it. [00:05:30] So that's all hinged on this initial point out here. At the other side of Kuna there's a hill out there that has what they call the initial point on it. And from that point anything so far west or so many miles west of the initial point, so many miles north of the initial point or so much east of [00:06:00] it or so much south of it, whatever. This whole country depends on that initial point. MARIE: Well, can you tell me a little bit about how Nampa reacted to the prohibition then? BEN: Well, it was like anything there was a certain amount of people that of course didn't approve of it. A lot of them did. A lot of them were indifferent. There was a certain amount [00:06:30] of bootlegging done around. And I don't know no idea how many bootleggers but there was a number of them. And they told about one that the police pursued him out to Main Street towards Caldwell. Every time he passed a telephone pole he threw out a bottle. When they finally caught up with him he didn't have anything. MARIE: [00:07:00] Well, that was probably in Canyon County. Then what was it like when it went statewide in 1916? BEN: I don't know. It didn't make any great impression on us. Nampa had been dry for a number of years so that the state going dry made no great impression. I suppose some people were like this man that worked for dad. He went over there and bought this quart [00:07:30] of whiskey for dad for medical purposes. And I suppose others did the same thing. But the average guy in Nampa wasn't too excited about it as far as I know. At least I didn't hear any great reaction. MARIE: Can you tell me about the transportation during this time? In particular the interurban and the early automobiles [00:08:00] in Nampa? BEN: I can remember when there were only three or four automobiles in Nampa. The Deweys had a couple of them. Con Dewey had a Hupmobile and Dr. Kellogg had a car, another automobile. And I can remember the interurban being built and built from Boise and it got to 4th Street North and the first interurban car came down there. We [00:08:30] all went down there to see it. Then they built on down and finally got the loop completed on down through Nampa. First it crossed railroad 11th Avenue and got to Main Street. It came up Main Street up as far as 13th Avenue. W. L. Nichols was ticket agent. He had a [00:09:00] stationary store on the left hand side of Main as you're going toward 14th. He was ticket agent. Then they built the interurban depot. They got the line built on down to Caldwell and they built the interurban depot where the fire company office is now. And they had a line come in behind it, not alone freight and that sort of thing. [00:09:30] For a number of years it was the thing on Sunday you could go around the loop for a dollar. When we used to board the streetcar on Sunday it had nothing else to do down through Caldwell. The boys seemed back to me. MARIE: I've heard that. That was all the weekend fun. BEN: Yeah it served its purpose there's no question about that. For quite a few years there was [00:10:00] quite a lot of high school kids that rode the interurban car lived out towards Caldwell or somewhere or out the other way and so on. There was a family by the name of Ulrey. The highway went up past the airport where the airport is now and on up a couple of miles and then turned and went across [00:10:30] to the present highway 30. The interurban crossing down there at the foot of the hill where interurban or the highway 30 is was known as Dead Man's Crossing. They got that name of this family by the name of Ulrey and bought a new automobile. The man and his wife and two girls and I think her brother and father out for a [00:11:00] Sunday drive when one of the girls were driving they were hit by an interurban car and killed a whole bunch. That's how it became Dead Man's Crossing and later years they moved it to the inter or to the Union or to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks a mile further on out. That's known as Dead Man's Crossing now. There's been several accidents there. But the original was right there by the cheese factory. Do MARIE: [00:11:30] Do you have any recollection of what life was like in Nampa before World War I? BEN: Well it was reasonably placid. I don't know of any particular outstanding thing except for the big fire in 1909 that burned up the entire block there between 13th and 14th and Front & Main Street. [00:12:00] That was on the 3rd of July and several of us kids we had a big barn on the north side or a fair sized barn and dad kept several horses, five or six, and we were up in the hayloft in this barn playing and mother kept making jelly or something and came down the alley and hollered at us there was a big fire uptown. [00:12:30] So we all went up 13th Avenue to First Street North. At that time there was an irrigation ditch running along there and the place on that side was a old Miles place, Mills place, later Miles. We stood there and watched the fire. You could see it burning up there. It was just darkened down Front Street good and [00:13:00] there was a family named Crane that lived a block above us by Lakeview School which is a block from Lakeview is a block from Lakeview where I live and Mr. Crane had a clothing store downtown and he'd been in the hospital in San Francisco in the hospital in San Francisco and died and I checked him back up here and he was in his casket on one of those depot trucks and Mrs. Crane back up here and he was in his casket on one of those depot trucks and Mrs. Crane was there with us, that mother of us kids and I don't know [00:13:30] just who was Mrs. Crane or the mother. Anyway she was quite put out and was worried about that he might burn up up there in his cross and his casket. Somebody was standing behind me said What difference does it make he's going to hell anyway. And then they brought the pumper from Boise 28 minutes on a flat car down here and put the hose in that ditch to pump water uptown to fight the fire and I can remember seeing men up on the top of the Dewey Hotel with buckets of water to fight the fire by [00:14:00] pouring water on the roof to keep the hotel from catching fire. As we went downtown later in the evening or the next day or something and and down 12th Avenue [00:14:30] and down Main Street the windows were all out of the buildings when it got hot. Dad's business was on 11th Avenue so it wasn't effected. 11th Avenue at that time was more or less the business district, quite a lot of it anyway. MARIE: What was his business? BEN: He had a meat market. MARIE: Oh that's right. BEN: And there was a building on there I think the building's still there, yes it is. [00:15:00] The one on the corner on Front Street they tore that out on 11th Avenue on that side of it but the next building was the Hardeman Building and that had half of it and that other had the other half and then there was a vacant lot between that and the next place and later there was a building built in there it's still there has a wagon a wagon wheel in the front of it [00:15:30] that was a Grove Import one built for that and then there was a Gray Grocery in there and George King had the King Packing Company came here in 1907 and he went to work for dad as a meat carter and then 19 yeah 1910 he bought out dad's partner and [00:16:00] he and dad were associated in business until 1916 when in 1916 when they parted company and he started in over here. MARIE: Did Nampa have any particular reaction to World War I? BEN: Oh a lot of excitement and people were pretty patriotic and stirred up about it [00:16:30] and all that but I don't recall any great doings or attachment about it. MARIE: They want to know were there any dissenters to the war effort? BEN: Any what? MARIE: Dissenters? BEN: I don't know of any, no. [00:17:00] They had the usual things they had cake sales and auctions and that sort of thing for the Red Cross. MARIE: What was life in Nampa like during the 20s? Were they part of the jazz age or the roaring 20s? BEN: Well I suppose you'd say it was part of the jazz age. Yorgeson [00:17:30] built a dance hall up on the north side up there on 11th and 5th. A big building later burned and they had this big dance hall up there and we all went up there and danced five cents a dance. Had little yellow tickets and five dollars worth of tickets and danced. They were, I think they were both war Mormons, good Mormons, in fact [00:18:00] I know they were, but they run a very decent dance hall and there never was was any drunks or any of that kind of stuff around there. It seemed like that there they never was, anybody who was inclined to drink didn't go there for some reason. They're just a good bunch of people. We all went up there Saturday night and enjoyed ourselves, danced from nine o'clock till midnight. MARIE: [00:18:30] Can you tell me anything about the agriculture or farming during that time? BEN: Well of course there's quite a lot of it. I can remember before that when Deer Flat out there was all more or less open country and then it began to people come to homestead [00:19:00] and on the corner there by the old city hall there was a big fountain there, a great big fountain for horses to drink and a lot of farmers came there and dipped up water in barrels and cans to haul out of Deer Flat because they had no wells, any way of getting any water [00:19:30] and the first fire station was on that corner too before they built the city hall there. It was a little wooden building with a hand truck in it and they had signs on a telephone pole or a power pole around over town and the first guy with his team to hook onto that and take it to the fire got five dollars. MARIE: [00:20:00] Were you familiar at all with the non-partisan league in a farmer's organization? BEN: mhmm MARIE: Were you familiar at all with the non-partisan league? BEN: No I never understood the non-partisan league. We never was much, my family never was much interested in politics. Dad was always more or less a Republican but still interested in politics. Dad was always more or less a Republican but still he always voted for the man he thought was best fitted for the office regardless office regardless of whether he was Republican or Democrat and [00:20:30] we never paid too much attention to that sort of thing. MARIE: How was Nampa affected by the Depression? BEN: Well they hit pretty hard here and I worked for the power company [00:21:00] in 1929. I had to work for them and in 31 they had the big layoff and cut our line crew from 43 men down to three and they told us that they were going to build a Salmon Falls Dam up at Hagerman and they told us that the power company boys would all have first shot at the jobs up there. Well they [00:21:30] notified us that we could go up there so I bought a 10 to 12 tent and Mrs. and I went up there. I had a a Studebaker car I guess it was. Anyhow they worked about 200 men and they had something over 700 that the next power company guy I don't know what it was. They had [00:22:00] some coming, some working, some going. I worked up there a little over a month I guess and then I came back here and I had 67 dollars. I bought some lumber to build a tent frame out here and put the tent on it. Mrs. and I's daughter lived in that for a year and a half during the Depression. We got along. [00:22:30] We went out to the lake and cut willows for wood. Lived on five bucks a week. MARIE: Did it affect the businesses quite a bit? BEN: Yeah quite a little. Of course people didn't have any money and a lot of them and they started the various kinds of WPA stuff. That kind of thing and and [00:23:00] they built a storm drain from down 14th Avenue to Indian Creek from I think from Main Street and all WPA work and they put, Dad had retired in 1930, sold his business and they offered him a job on that as a kind of foreman or something [00:23:30] and had politics where they got him out of that, put somebody else in. But anyway then they, we had this property and he and the other fella got involved with custom butchering out here and they came along and wanted to work this road over out here and they wanted eight feet off of us on this side. Dad told them nothing to [00:24:00] doin' so they went up here to Larson, the next place, told him that Dad would give it to them if he would. He did for a livin' so then they came down here and told Dad that Larson would give it to them if he would and so on. But anyway they took eight feet off this end and 16 feet off down next to the creek. And Dad deeded the property to me [00:24:30] and they couldn't find his abstract. And so I went to a lawyer that I knew, old man Heglin, known him for years and he said you and your your wife can handle it. Get your tape line and measure it for the road here where you think the property line is. According to the deed I had said that a triangle or a piece of ground lying south of an irrigation ditch containing an acre more or less. [00:25:00] That's all there was on it. Anyway this ditch followed the ditch down to where it hit the road again. So I took the figures to him and he figured out there's three quarters of an acre here. MARIE: Were there a lot of business failures and bank closures? BEN: I don't recall so many places that quit any more than [00:25:30] normal. There's always seemed like businesses pop up and run for a year and then quit for some reason or or another and bad at management or some darn thing. I've known through the years a number of places that somebody started up and had a good business and then somebody come along and thought oh boy that's the real thing and so they bought him out. Within a year they'd gone broke. [00:26:00] He couldn't handle it. Not everybody can run a business it seems like. We run this one here and Mrs. and I got involved in the custom business then. We run it for 38 years. Got along alright. MARIE: There wasn't any bank closures? BEN: I don't recall anybody going out of business particularly that wouldn't have gone out of business anyhow. MARIE: [00:26:30] In what way did the people of Nampa feel the effects of the Depression? BEN: Well like it is now there's a lot of people out of work. A lot of people had no jobs. A lot of them was working for WPA. Some of them made a career out of it and [00:27:00] the chief objection I had to some of that was that I had a young fellow working for me out here helping out here a couple of days a week and he was on WPA drawing forty dollars a month or some such a thing and they told him if he worked out here where they'd cut him off on that. I don't approve of that idea. I think they should be able to help themselves [00:27:30] a little if they could and they're doing that right now on this relief center. MARIE: Did they have any help for the down and out during that time other than the WPA? BEN: Not that I know of, no. Of course there's Salvation Army which had always been in that business to a certain extent. I don't know of anything else other than that. [00:28:00] The Red Cross don't get involved unless there's a catastrophe of some kind and that sort of thing but the Salvation Army at Christmas time puts out various things and I think they run some kind of a store too that they put out foodstuffs. MARIE: [00:28:30] Was the economy really severe, then? BEN: What? MARIE: Was the economy really severe? BEN: Yeah, it was pretty rough. They had the bank closures and that affected a lot of people. What money they had was tied up in the banks and they didn't have capital to operate with. It made it pretty rough. That [00:29:00] was later though after the war got going when they had the OPA but between the 30s and when the bank opened up and things begun to move again it was pretty rough on a lot of people. MARIE: Did it have any effect on city elections? BEN: Honestly, I don't know. I didn't pay [00:29:30] a whole lot of attention to politics and city elections. MARIE: I'm not sure what this means. It says, how did the New Deal affect Nampa? Do you know what that was? BEN: Well, that was when Roosevelt went in. His big thing was the New Deal he was going to have. Two [00:30:00] cars in every garage and two chickens in every pot. Which didn't pan out but they had a lot of excitement over it and they turned the unions loose and told them to do whatever they wanted to do and so on and so forth. They built up a lot of membership and things went along and they had more or less of a boom here until the war started and then [00:30:30] they really really had a boom during the war. People went to the coast and worked in shipyards and all kinds of things and they made all kinds of money and they started the OPA and had a lot of regulations on that. MARIE: Do you have any idea of how the Depression [00:31:00] affected the farming community? BEN: Well, it affected them, yes, because the prices of what they produced was low up until the war started and then they all made money. But during the Depression years, [00:31:30] a lot of the farmers had it pretty rough and the prices were low and what they had to buy, like it is now, was high priced. But But the prices for what they had to sell were too good and a lot of them had quite a little problem. And when the war got going, of course, there was a big demand for everything and everybody made money. MARIE: [00:32:00] Well, on what was life like during World War II, did the town react to this war? BEN: Yeah, I don't know of any dissension around this particular locality. Of course, there was dissension all over the country, people against it and so on and so forth. But not a lot around here END OF RECORDING https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/c74b3c605fbc6673cc1d412684a08d1b.mp3?Expires=1792627200&Signature=FRBiHKkpfmvUwwTdDZBVBGZgdEGVde015dgvh6GRc6j260CRxbM1qsvcLBp80KaS02ivi16N6jelDsETqzlI2%7EV6EWh9isXgJlmN24AkYLrR23k3rWK2ZJwMwU7D-EeECZeX-MuGqDIHTlb8w51B5c2gFIHNG9n16GNjNuIY18hmi8kMudeUrPSnKkKBMqKXGytEgUykmJImTFG5Do5Sir0MG6hX1o44tbnWi3c7BR3Q22qPaxyN-6S6cgNA0iMgnW3V1nQd7to3VYb%7EuQWctNhXfIs3y79gQ-FgNxaXwF6LYwg0LnLNumEJ2FWl9J9jDluqofI3B%7EpFMHQn6Z9iiQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 2084f59b58714397f355a8d7013ecab0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ben Anketell, Recording 2 of 2 PDF Text Text BEN ANKETELL: A lot of boys from here that went into the service, some voluntarily and some of course drafted. MARIE WADE: Tell me about the prisoner of war camps that they had in this area around here. BEN: The only one that I know of was out here on Joe Schwartz's place. [00:00:30] Let's see, you go out to... I'll have to think about that. What the heck road that was? I think it's Holley. You go out to Holley and then on out. You get out there [00:01:00] past the Allen place and the road more or less ends. You ends. You have to go one way or the other. You turn east about half a mile or a little more, a little more than half a mile. They built a prisoner of war camp down there on Joe Schwartz's place. Just how long it was there I don't know. A couple of years I suppose. Like a lot of those things, we didn't pay a great deal of attention [00:01:30] to it. Don't know too much about it. The main thing I remember about it was that after it was over, they moved the people out of there. Old Joe Schwartz was down there poking around and he found an army overcoat with a P.W. on the back for the wars around here for Turkey and Winters. He had I think 160 acres out there [00:02:00] and was probably one of the new citizens. He didn't run for wasting his money. MARIE: Is that the only one they had around here? BEN: The only one I know of. There could have been another one but I don't know of it. That's the only one I knew of was that one out there. MARIE: [00:02:30] Well they uh, I'm kind of interested a little bit in different things that happened. This This is kind of a broad question. During the 50s and the 60s and the 70s, how things progressed. There are different things that went on in Nampa. BEN: I'll have to think on that. [00:03:00] We were in business here until 1967. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to what was going on in the way of things that were taking place around town here. Quite a lot of building taking place like the building Karcher Mall out there and various out there and various [00:03:30] things of that nature. A lot of the stores nature. MARIE: A lot of the stores began to move from town too, didn't they? BEN: Yeah. Penney's was downtown there where part of what Pennywise Drugstore was. Consumers was on the corner there of 13th Avenue. Then they built the building over [00:04:00] there. Honstead built the building over there on the 14th. Moved the store over there. the building over there Moved the store over there. Powell built that building on the corner that the paint store was in. He had a blacksmith shop there building on the corner that the paint store was in. He had a blacksmith shop there at one time. There was a star livery barn down on 10th Avenue between Main and 2nd. Powell had a blacksmith shop there. They did away with [00:04:30] the livery barn. He moved up there and built a building and had a blacksmith shop there. Mrs. Mrs. Mealick built the building that... She built the first building. Consumers was in. Then she built from there to the alley. Across Across the alley were what has the store is now a man by the name of Smith that married one of the Hobgarner [00:05:00] girls. Built that building. He had a service station on the corner. At one time he built that building there. Who the heck was in it first? [00:05:30] I believe Penneys was in there. Yeah, it was. That's where Penneys... Of course, when they built the mall, Penneys moved out there. Woolworth moved in there. But the thing that ruined the downtown was lack of parking. Like it was there, the employees parked in front of the place and went out every little bit and fed nickels into the [00:06:00] thing so there wasn't any place for the public to park. MARIE: Didn't they at one time have an auction right down in town there? BEN: Yeah, on 14th Avenue. Across from the Consumers. That... There was quite a corner there. There was two or three [00:06:30] lots in there. From the alley was an auction yard. They had junk auctions, they called it. Also livestock auction there. There used to be a little brick building on the corner there that was the office for it. And then down 14th Avenue, along there, there was a building that Ray Seabury had a meat market in one time. [00:07:00] On down next to the Fireman's Wigwam. Then below the Fireman's Wigwam, Cecil Cowan, or not Cecil, but Freeman, built a building in there that had a blacksmith shop. On the corner there was a service station that belonged to one time Billy Showalter. And And he was in the building across the street [00:07:30] was the Badger building, all torn out and now the Salvation Army built a new building in there. BEN: There's been an awful lot of changes in the town and the buildings. Buildings built and later torn out. The Waddell building torn out built and later torn out. The Waddell building torn out of there. It was in between where the Salvation Army is now and the Waddell building. The [00:08:00] now and the Waddell building. The Waddell building was torn out of there. The Waddell building torn out of Waddell building was torn out of there. The Waddell building torn out of there. It It was in between where the Salvation Army is now and the next building. And then next building. And then one in between, there's a vacant area there, that was the Munhall building. The The Forbidden Palace blew up in there. Dad had his meat market in that part of the building where later the Forbidden Palace blew up. And [00:08:30] the McLean hardware store in the corner where Pfeiffer's is now. The building across the street was the Nampa Department Store. When I was a kid in 1907 they was in the Kalbus building. That was a Falk Mercantile. And that Dewey and one of the Falks, D. S. Heimacher. [00:09:00] I forget, another guy or two formed the Nampa Department Store. Had built that building in 1909 and moved up there. That's That's where it is there. Where Nafziger's is, was a commercial building owned by Dewey and the post office was in half of that. For a number of years. Then they [00:09:30] moved down back where the library is now on the alley. The post office was in there until they built the present building. MARIE: Going back a little bit again. When you was just a young man growing up, what did the families do for entertainment? BEN: [00:10:00] Well in the winter time we went up to Lake Ethel and skated. Over on 13th Avenue from Lakeview School down that hill. In the winter time we had snow. Seemed like we had more snow than we had later years but we did a lot of coasting on that hill. In In the [00:10:30] summer time we kids went fishing, went up and down Indian Creek. This was all wide open country along here at that time. There was lots of places along here we could catch bullfrogs and sell them to the Dewey Hotel. A dollar and a half a dozen. That was big money. There was carp in the lake up there. I've never been able lake up there. I've never been able to find out when that lake was built. Somewhere [00:11:00] I've got it but it was drained. The country down below began to go wet. It had a wrecked rock or something. So I had something. So I had to drain the lake. They land below the lake there. 's all parked the lake there. It's all parked now. It was a Chinese garden when I was a kid. The Chinese peddled vegetables around town here with the horse and wagon. On that side of Mason Creek. [00:11:30] There was quite a little orchard down in there below the Dewey House and Mason Creek. Somebody gave Dewey the bear cub and they had him down in there on a collar and chain. As he grew bigger he got tearing up the trees and this and that. So they gave him to my dad. He had [00:12:00] a building on the back of the loft he fixed up to house this bear in. They put two by fours up and down. First thing the bear did was take his life and tear them all out of there. The chain and collar he dug down in underneath and made him a place to roost. At Christmas time they tashed him out of there and shot him. Dressed him out and had him in the market down on 11th Avenue. [00:12:30] Sold bear steaks. MARIE: What was family entertainment? I mean the whole, what did the families do? BEN: Not much of anything. I don't know it didn't seem like there was much of anything [00:13:00] to do. Nobody thought too much about it. We kids all went to school of course. They had high school over there at Kenwood. My sisters graduated from 8th grade at Lakeview. They went over there to high school and they walked back and forth and came home to lunch at noon. It was a mile between Lakeview and Kenwood. They thought nothing of it they walked back and forth. [00:13:30] One of them graduated in 1913 and one in 1914. Both valedictorians of their class. They didn't pass any of that intelligence on to their brother. No we did a lot of reading and that sort of thing. The girls had their friends and so [00:14:00] on and so forth. MARIE: Did they have house dances and picnics and things like that? BEN: No I don't recall they did. They visited some back and forth and that sort of thing. Once in a while somebody had a party but there weren't very many. Those days where the kids made maybaskets [00:14:30] and hung them on people's door knobs and wrapped them on the door and they'd run. That's something that's died out. Us boys we made our own kites and our own bows and arrows and all that sort of thing. You couldn't buy that kind of stuff we just made it when we wanted it. We played shinny up there on the lake. [00:15:00] Coasted and that sort of stuff. During the good weather going to school, of course I went home to dinner. Much to my regret. Played games up there on the school yard. Pull away as we called it. One of my regrets was I never was allowed to wear overalls and never carried [00:15:30] lunch to school. Living a block from school I didn't go in much for carrying lunch. MARIE: Well can you tell me some of the things that have happened to you in your adult life and maybe some of the things that might have happened to around town? Anything interesting? BEN: Well [00:16:00] I went into the Army in 1919. Put in three years in the Army Air Force in California, Texas. I don't know if there was any exciting episodes that took place. I came back here in November after I got out of the service in August. Came back [00:16:30] here in November. Just kind of settled in and drove the limo wagon for Dad at the market. In 1923 when the Mrs. and I were married. Life more or less went on from there. MARIE: What was your business? You [00:17:00] said had, you and your wife had. BEN: We had custom business. We did custom butchering and cutting and wrapping and freezing. MARIE: When did you start your museum out here? BEN: Oh more or less after, oh I don't know just when we started it. The first long room there had more or less stuff in there quite a long time. It ended in 1967 after we quit the custom [00:17:30] business. I retired on Social Security. We turned the whole place into a museum then. We had stuff stored in boxes and stuff around in various places. Dug it around in various places. Dug it out and scattered it out. Made a kind of a museum out out and scattered it out. Made a kind of a museum out of it. We never did keep any particular hours. If people particular hours. If people come along and want to look and we're here we let them in, take them in. MARIE: Kind of going back a little [00:18:00] bit, can you tell me a little bit about your custom meat that you had? BEN: Started that in 1931. MARIE: Can you tell [00:18:30] me a little bit about it? Some of your problems you might have had with it? BEN: Well we did a little different from a lot of them. We were more or less by appointment. We took what business we knew we could handle and do a good job of it. People came along and wanted something butchered, we put the name on the list. Sometimes along [00:19:00] there during the war there was sometimes two or three weeks ahead. But they soon learned that we told them a certain day they could bring the animal in while we were ready for it. And then when they brought it in we told them what day they could come and get their meat. And people learned that that's what we meant. We run the business that way and it was very successful. We [00:19:30] made good living while we was at it. Worst trouble was when we quit business we had a lot of old equipment out here that nobody wanted. We built a freezer over there. Son-in-law, had a daughter and she married. Son-in-law was in the Navy and he came over here in 1945 I think it was, 1946. [00:20:00] And he went in and visited with us here and worked here with us. And then he and I built a freezer over there. Lined it with styrofoam and put in refrigeration and we could put a ton and a half of meat in there and freeze it overnight. MARIE: You didn't have any particular kind of problems with [00:20:30] your business and it all went just fine? BEN: No, like any business you, I had a few dissatisfied customers once in a while but not very often. I was trying to think, something came up that OPA got on us about. And And I told them I couldn't comply with it and the head guy over there in Boise told me I had to. I told him I [00:21:00] didn't have to, I owned the place, I could close it up if I wanted to. They laid off of me. But we had lots of people that we did butchering for for years and kept coming back every year. Once or twice a year getting something butchered and fixed up. [00:21:30] Seemed to be well satisfied with their work. We always made it a point to, anybody brought an animal in, we had a clipboard and we wrote down what they wanted. How many people they had to eat it and just how they wanted it cut. And there they could tell us, we tried to do it that way. We operated on the theory that after all they're the ones that are going to eat it so it should be cut the way they want [00:22:00] it. A lot of places didn't do that, they just cut it up. We got some queer instructions sometimes. People didn't want any short ribs, no boiling meat, no this, no that. One guy brought in a bull in here and wanted it all in a hamburger. We ground him We ground him up 600 pounds of hamburger. [00:22:30] Not too long after he went home with it his wife divorced him. Whether him. Whether that had anything to do with it I don't know. Some people wanted as much of it to fry as they could get. One lady, she and her son lived out south of here somewhere. Been here several times and said don't [00:23:00] ever cut a roast for me less than five or six pounds. When I cook a roast I want to cook a roast. Another lady had a couple of kids and she wanted a roast a pound and a half. Get a pound and a half roast cooked you wouldn't have anything. MARIE: Kell, well I don't know. I wonder if there's any [00:23:30] particular happy time things that have happened or tragic things that have happened. BEN: Well first, my wife lost her father in 1941. I lost mine in 1945. Then she lost her mother in 1950. I lost mine in 1950. [00:24:00] I had a sister that worked for weeks in Sundham Caldwell. She got disabled and was in a nursing home out here for 13 years. MARIE: Well how about community things then that happened? BEN: We never were much involved in the community. Neither of us were [00:24:30] ever joiners. The only thing we ever belonged to was a rock club in Caldwell. Then of course when they started the Canyon County Museum I was one of the charter members in that. To help them get established and so on and so forth. Ben Waigand and I, we didn't have anything when they started down there except the building. Ben Waigand and I went around the country here and begged one thing or another to [00:25:00] get stuff to get it started. People to help do on various things. People to donate stuff like lighters and odds and ends and stuff that we could work with down there. Then they got connected up with the county so they got plenty of money to work with anymore. MARIE: You were pretty interested then in the historical part of things. BEN: Yeah [00:25:30] I always was. I was more or less interested interested then in the historical part of things. Yeah I always was. I was more or less interested in history. That was one of my failings in school was that they got a new history book and I read it from cover to cover in a few days. Then I never could stick to the subject up to the daily lesson. I was always a voracious reader. I still am as far as that's concerned. [00:26:00] My daughter works over at the State Library in Boise. Last fall in November or September I broke out with pneumonia and was in the hospital for 41 days. Then they decided I wasn't going to make it so they sent me home. Mrs. got a hospital bed and put it over there where that couch is. Brought me home by ambulance. Parked me [00:26:30] in there. I couldn't walk. Finally brought me a walker and I got so I could walk. Getting along fine now. Once they told me I had cancer and then later they came back and said I didn't have. More than enough for one to second opinion. There's already five or six doctors involved like there is nowadays. MARIE: Well... [00:27:00] Well... BEN: I don't know just what else that would be of any particular interest. MARIE: Well, let's see. UNKNOWN: [00:27:30] This is the end of Mr. Ben Anketell's interview for the Historical Society. Thank you. END OF RECORDING Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nampa Oral History Collection Description An account of the resource Oral histories recorded 1984-1986 for Nampa's Centennial celebration. About 60 individuals shared their recollection of the early days of living in Nampa. Some of these people's stories relate to photos in the Historic Photo Exhibit. Click on the name or subject listed under "Relation" to discover more details about life in Nampa. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984-1986 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Nampa Centennial Committee Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Marie Wade Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Ben Anketell Location The location of the interview 3424 Amity Ave, Nampa, ID Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource Mr. Ben Anketell, at his home on Amity Avenue, Nampa, shares recollections of life in early 1900's. Title A name given to the resource Ben Anketell Date Created Date of creation of the resource. May 31, 1985 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nampa Centennial Committee Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985, May 31 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Interviews recorded for the library's oral history program are copyrighted to the Nampa Public Library which maintains rights to reproduce the recordings in all existing and future formats for the purposes of preservation and access. Researchers may quote portions of interviews in non-commercial projects, unless otherwise noted. Proper credit should be given. No part of the interviews may be used in commercial, for-profit projects without permission from Nampa Public Library. 1909 Fire Automobiles Dance Hall Great Depression Interurban railroad Prohibition Stores https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/03d29a5d04df9337d3c317f7e291af20.jpg?Expires=1792627200&Signature=QlXhts-3Hpm9NdWMCqvKT7FteGPgXTBMIReK8yW5zAnbJofxRjwehWAabrG6wYgbgly62ppQU9cJTAnQtLJk99pxSxxn0SP9pbOEakjy2mIhx7OOoJMiKIR7VMgo1igG6aykDvoL77VpEpDF2Ufq%7EE7Fc4pZ6U7%7E5UufKLBN8iFT724Ns9UUkW8sh7XwsjMIOhegB9w2zf1vDfNWDyMTOC4KUDgq1TQMEIm%7E35-qX7o3UVLNfBRrHJMDuOnFdI3cDQ3KGbslcDq-G%7EyXRYX1phK1qPX1AcV3mkZysmYt1ailFWHjwaW%7EY2FTTNQemAySaBQ6uiwG8onQMkRtwGyB6A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 78b92816726092d44b9865e859c91d6f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Brothers, Ernest & Joseph Yorgason Description An account of the resource Photo: Ernest and Joseph Yorgason (front-left), [Others are unidentified] The brother's ran Yorgason's Dance Hall in the 1920's-30's Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Scott McKnight https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/433808d9e9cda11f86d4c8d787f10edf.jpg?Expires=1792627200&Signature=qWeBMTxfrXSYrTWJv0wTiw6a00P96G0yz0d9AdCV5UgPIffPMz1LXCr9ySCAXcC%7El6rR1s7mwbk1FRsF0gj32EzbD7Xsp5wBHVY84tJrJBD-uuNNomzyxvZMzyy8kl6xn8L5tjpMkZEhr4IBcbYUKN7EuhgNdYnEHylGAtQT2pwJYjB97PBGreeJRNmK9JcMc2d4ZFLfnVsCux-xnvKTlJPUSfRSYeG-oxG78L014Oa-FX8HbiqWsT-rM0VSfkIikEVsBumbT89WwxLOAreymeeAfB9EEceL4Tf-Eg3%7EbR83xq48Wk9VdzWHZ1P65-DW4mZnDn-39cu0RsuxCxZplA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM a880602d08adce8742e96b254c76934e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Yorgason Family Description An account of the resource Fourth of July photo, 1953. Ernest & Luzean Yorgason (front) and family; from left - LaRue, Eldon, Alta and Elinor. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ernest & Luzean Yorgason Family Description An account of the resource Ernest arrived in Nampa by train in 1915 and purchased land in the Deer Flat area for farming. His wife Luzean and baby daughter, Alta arrived shortly after. Around 1921, Ernest and his brother Joe opened the Yorgason Dance Hall, which is mentioned in several of Nampa's Oral Histories collected in 1984-1985. Relation A related resource <a href="https://nampalibrary.omeka.net/files/show/902" title="Yorgason Dance Hall">Yorgason Dance Hall</a> Brothers Businesses Dance Hall Entertainment Nampa People https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/cf6839e8233a67243788f5322999b97a.mp3?Expires=1792627200&Signature=Vv3MLUaAyAHSSlqNijH2dAP7dZB5yNrIi-Bm2j4ySX3etiNUAHDwgJrnfY3Z8ZW%7ESX7JbQbkstOEliyxaH2OEtgOKYwPZ68pRdf3enkRqTP6W0a8cYdeOIJR-wziD%7EFTyuZ3WL-aEoAYwa3enaYKF-7jpPna8QM4WZnMWYydUF47fP7D1%7ED7R%7EF6m0KnMJhRRA2T27SjMgIIkr85UL3ga%7E3ZefGRa1Rp5b1WPSrk2SNhS4eqU7K52vz9v34ApQTapIXGuk%7Ep8OC7FrTaoYjuCaUR5xI67ocl6uQsUriJG0VVPURIOsZdvRf11fwAh1hnoU-LOqksk0XVEx%7EauJ65VA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 895b7863e7f6d45244d92a1d3fcc1fba Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Wilma Patterson Recording 1 of o2 PDF Text Text FLORENCE TAYLOR: This is tape one side one of an interview with Wilma Patterson for Centennial material. The interview will follow. WILMA PATTERSON: I came to Idaho with my parents in 1910 on the train. I know I’ve been told that my mother put me to sleep on the seat in front of her and then they all went to sleep, and I fell off the seat and rolled to the back of the train (laughs) and woke up with somebody else’s feet down there. And we landed out in the Franklin community and my father rented a farm and in those days his neighbors would come in and loan him equipment and they began farming without anything more. I think he had [00:01:00] a $1.10 when he arrived here, but he managed to get started farming. And I went to my first grade in Franklin school and I lived in Franklin in the marble front communities. The little marble front school out there has since been converted into somebody’s lovely home, but at the time that I went to school there. My mother sent me to Sunday school at Marble Front, there was a Sunday school teacher who came and I was placed on my horses. All the other farm boys and girls were and sent to school. And there somebody challenged me to ride my horse up the steps and down the hall and around the teacher’s desk. Which I did. I was a little stupid because that horse had iron shoes and it left tracks all through that room. And when I returned home, I had the horse [00:02:00] removed from my usage for a 30-day period. I was there until 1931 or something there, and we moved to Nampa. I lived on Seventh Street and Ninth Avenue, and the thing most impressed me when we moved to town was the fact that in the wintertime, the streets were impassable south of Third Street. That was a business district, and there was a makeshift blacktop on those streets. But when you left that, you could bury a team and wagon and my dad had bought one of the late model cars and the thing promptly sunk outta sight there and he had to have a wrecker pull him out. So for years, he parked it up in the business district and walked home. And in those days, if children wanted entertainment, they walked... The main entertainment we had was [00:03:00] the old Adelaide Theater with the with a Saturday serial, where Pauline is tied on the way of the train tracks and each of us had to go back. And then there was the old Yorgason Dance Hall, when you wake up into your teenage -- and let me tell you, there will never be anything the equal of that as a Saturday entertainment. FLORENCE: And Yorgason Dance Hall, was on the north side? WILMA: Yeah, it was on the Seventh Street North and Eleventh Avenue. And everyone went there. I think you’ve heard of these diamond dances. Well, it wasn’t one of those where you bought tickets, but it was about a dime to get in it. FLORENCE: Who played? WILMA: Boys and girls, they all paid. FLORENCE: Played. What was the music? WILMA: Oh, they had a band that, I don’t know, we didn’t any of us know one band from another. They did, they had a little (inaudible) band that played up there. And the smoke, the dust was so thick, you [00:04:00] could scarcely see it, and you could scarcely hear it because you’d get all those boys and girls clomping around in there. Nobody had dance slippers, you know. You got a pair of shoes. You wore ’em all year round. FLORENCE: Well, was it for grownups too? WILMA: Oh yes, adults came too, but then it was predominantly teenagers. Because there was no beer served, there was no refreshments of any sort, except you could buy a root beer or something of that sort. It was not one of those buyin’ and dance or liquor for them to drink. It was strictly dance. You went there to dance and that was it. If you got a bottle of coke you were doing well. But it was popular and when it was burnt down, The town lost something because today’s youngsters have no place to congregate that it is harmless like that. I don’t ever remember anybody being arrested or any [00:05:00] fights. They just went there to have a good time. The boys went to meet the girls, and the girls went to meet the boys, and everybody was happy. And if the adults wanted to dance, they went someplace like the Elf’s, it was more exclusive then. This was a common people’s place. FLORENCE: What year did it burn down? WILMA: That I can’t remember. I know I was grown and past the age of going to the Yorgason Dance hall when it burned down, but it was a landmark there for 20 years, I believe. And it still sat in vacant up there, that lot. FLORENCE: Yes, I remember. And I remember the dance hall. Never went there, but I remember the dance hall. WILMA: Well, I wasn’t allowed to go very often because I had to walk from Seventh Street on the south side, clear to Seventh Street on the north side, which is 14 blocks. But you either walked or you [00:06:00] stayed home. And if you did go with a boy, he had to walk too. He’d call for you and took you home. And I attended Kenwood school and at the time I went to school there, the school was surrounded with little houses. They called them bungalows. They were just a one room cabin is what they were, very simple. And there were old bathrooms and toilets in them. If you had to go, you had to go. I think you had to go back up in the schoolhouse and, but anyway, they weren’t moved from one room to the other. You went in there in the morning and you stayed until the teacher dismissed you in the afternoon and she thought you – FLORENCE: The teacher moved, not the kids? WILMA: No, the same teacher taught all the classes. But now and then they had a visiting teacher come in with something [00:07:00] special. Geography was one. FLORENCE: And that was grade school? WILMA: Yes. That was grade school. And in high school, of course, it had the campus style. You moved from one room to the next. And Annie Laurie Bird was a fixture at the high school, she was a fascinating person. And she’d get so carried away with history that she’d forget she was supposed to be teaching the fall of King Arthur and the knights and be carried away with the football team here at Nampa. But she did a marvelous job and she has written the best history of Nampa that has been there. My father came from Kentucky. My father’s people, my mother’s people, [00:08:00] works in the Cherokee Nation. And the amusing thing is that my grandfather was a Cherokee Indian and my grandmother had some white blood someplace along there. So they had a nice little home out here in the Franklin community, and she was a modern woman and she put up curtains at the windows. During their lifetime, my grandfather, when he came in the house, promptly picked the curtains up and draped them on nails on the side of the window because he liked to see out, and she permitted him while he was in the house. And the minute he went out, she dropped the lace curtains back down over the window. (laughter) So we grew to where we knew if we went to grandma’s and grandpa’s and the lace curtains were hanging across the windows, and grandpa was out in the fields. And they spent a lifetime happily married and differing every foot of the way about the curtains. FLORENCE: I didn’t know that you had, uh, [00:09:00] a dash of Indian blood. And yet I should know too, because of your high cheek bones. WILMA: My grandfather, he had those cheek bones, you know, but he had definite ideas. You didn’t gussy your house all up with the lace curtains. I think he’d have been happier in the teepee. When I went into the real estate business, it was Janine (inaudible). Went into it at the same time, and she and I were the first two women in Idaho to become brokers. Now, the fact that we went in, her father -- I can’t remember his name now. He was a prominent farmer here. FLORENCE: Probably will come out in some other – WILMA: My father was Art Randolph and he was my partner. In those days, you could -- [00:10:00] all of ’em in the office were brokers, so we were both brokers. But I know she and I had quite a little struggle becoming established in a man’s world and only the fact that we had our fathers to front for us enabled us to gain a toehold. When my father died and I had men come in and ask to see some property, and when they would see that I would show it, they said they would come back when some of the men were around. And it was either let ’em walk out or hold a gun on them to get ’em to get in a car with a woman. So by persistence, we carried on. Mr. (inaudible) was gone, rather gave it up. But I was just persistent enough to keep plodding along until finally they -- today in the real estate business, there’s more women in it than there are men. And Florence just brought up an [00:11:00] interesting item that in the days here -- if someone else hasn’t brought this out, I’m going to bring it out. In interviews discovered that in 1900, 1905, in there, there were more women graduating from high school than there were men. And I think it’s the fact that in those days, a boy 12 or 14 was out of work on the farm or holding the job, he didn’t have time to go to high school, graduate. Where today, we’d be horrified if it was suggested that a high school kid would be better off out digging a ditch, shoeing a horse, or doing something of that sort. But in those days, they were expected to earn a living as soon as they reached the age of 12. And that’s why I think I couldn’t help but be impressed by Florence’s item that there were more boys than girls [sic] graduating from high school. I know that when [00:12:00] I first went into real estate, the Home Federal down here was a predominant lending, except that John Brand had the Provident Federal and a little office up there, across from the old city hall. And that was the only two lending agencies in Nampa, the time that I was in business that really did any business. There was another little office down here on First Street who’d been gone for a long while. But when you think of how many lending agencies there are now, the competition, and you look at Home Federal and Provident Federal and figure, they’re really part of the pioneers. They really are part of the centennials because they finance most every building that was put up here after about 1930, all the rest of ’em went broke. So after the Depression, we didn’t know anything else, but they go through one of those lending agencies. Now then, I’ve seen a lot of changes in [00:13:00] this town. When I walked to school to (inaudible), you think we haven’t made any progress when you turn your irrigation water on and there’s a little problem in it. In those days, they had an open lateral that ran along Sixth Street, east and west there, and kids going to school, if they got a scuffle, one of ’em got pushed in the canal and then it’d take the fire department and the chief police to get him fished out before he was sucked down into one of the underground laterals. So it was nip and tuck here, how many kids are going to reach [mature?], they even going to school past those open irrigation laterals. (laughs) Now I can’t, I’m trying to think what else I can remember here. FLORENCE: Lemme just -- (break in audio) -- now let’s talk about when your father had his office and where was it, and when did you go into business with him? WILMA: They saved [00:14:00] his real estate license first, and his office was at 1510 First Street South. That right now has the Mexican bakery here next to our existing office now. And we called it -- I got my license -- and the name of it was Randolph and Patterson. Everything in those days are partnerships, Grant and Harper, everybody had two names. It isn’t like it is today where you have a brand name like Heritage or Century 21 or something of that sort. It was, there was [Leonard?] Agency and Grant and Harper, with Cash Harper, he was a partner. And this was Randolph and Patterson. And I think there was a total of about eight real estate offices in town. Since my father was a cattleman and a farmer, we dealt primarily in land in cattle ranches and commercial-like motels, things of that sort. And [00:15:00] therefore, I needed a man, because in no way with these conservative, mainly dominated men of the 1940s going to admit that a woman had brains enough to come in outta the rain. (laughter) In 1946, my husband and I bought 640 acres in Garden Valley which we used as a cattle ranch. We ran a cattle area in the summer in Garden Valley to the home base on Southside Boulevard in the wintertime. We still got that ranch as long as we’ll keep it, as long as we can afford to pay the taxes on it. So the business that I’ve known so many years of selling land and cattle ranches is at a standstill with the current economic crashing and farm prices. (Inaudible) unable to quit. John, Brandt and I run the race to see who can stay in the business the [00:16:00] longest, and I’ve got an office at 1512 First Street South, right next door to where I started. Let’s see, I started and in 1946 and stayed there until 1966. [00:17:00] (inaudible) END OF RECORDING https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/bebf61fdac503386c29bb8a23e032236.mp3?Expires=1792627200&Signature=AoU%7ELh2D-JBWjiya-f-qMD6jddkFJCXVubYF4MNcLEUU6euYawnkDun8zfCel1fMHAvLTXZoLE2AWMqRbIYIZ9a1cQ2s1wmd%7EWjeomOexsC7uqJ69zj-iBTo8WrANLzmUNVX6UmxN9A%7EfjITMSEt6kD8UxSDakkuYdD-MdlK0uZ5FLuze10onyoHJsgCa7WJb9E%7EvjuCQNdsUeCKp54jGv9oZw1tITh1UaPzmRhsyeAjgeK7I%7E5N35-oZYohM99OkyO3DTUKoSl%7ENu5ukYMvK-Xi3zQjKswusfXnLbeMn37K28WHLDox2UqYifut-Rf8BCGMpP0buPnHFpuObbl3lg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 6f5288fdc10992c2b27a57c00ff2d73b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Wilma Patterson Recording 2 of 2 PDF Text Text WILMA PATTERSON: -- TV talk shows and he was an environmentalist who thought that every dam should be dynamited. They were a government hazard to the country as far as environment was concerned, and that any proposal to build any war dams would be criminal. And he was the speaker ahead of me. And Murray didn’t even know it was Arthur Godfrey because he isn’t much bigger than I am and I’m only 5’2”. He was [freckle-faced and red-headed?] and he read his statement and I thought, even a man that’s so good on television should be able to say what he thinks without reading it. But he did, he [stood there and read it kind of monotone?] so I thought, well this will just be a pushover. I’ll get this damn business [00:01:00] too right now. But as far as either he continued, we didn’t leave alone of us, made any impression because there were no dams ever came out of it. The Garden Valley Dam was coming up the Congress at that time, it was proposaled to irrigate the mountain home desert and all this land between Boise Valley and Emmett. The Black Canyon District, all that water that was impounded would be impaled in the Garden Valley Dam, which in play between Cascade Dam and the Garden Valley Dam and Anderson Ranch Dam. They were going to build a tunnel and tie three dams together, and that was all set up to go through. The Vietnamese War came along and that put a stop to everything, all the money that congress had to play around with went for the war and all these projects were shelved and they’ll probably never be considered again. [00:02:00] But that was interesting because when so many different opinions come up between the Sierra Club and the practical-minded people, and then you’ve got the timber element that wants to cut every created there is to be found. And right now between the BLM, the forest service and the environmentalist and the grasshoppers, we’ve got a real conflict going. And right over here in the Whitey County, they’ve got a new obnoxious weed called the leafy spurge, but it’s poison to cattle and flock and so forth. And the BLM is proposing to spray for it, eradicate it before it gets to stock. And there’s certain segment of the people that are posing it and as [00:03:00] of now, it’s being sided until the argument is set. It’s not confined in one county. It’s in Boise and Valley County, and they’re all vulnerable to it all. Vulnerable to the grasshoppers. Surprisingly enough, the wild animal is still with us, because my office that’s down here 1510 First Street South, and I walked out last week and there was bull snake coiled up in the middle of the street here, and the gentleman across the street brought his cane out and picked him up and the lady came along in the car and he put it in the bucket and she took it home because she said it’d kill mice and she was going to take it home to get the mice. FLORENCE: That, that should remind you, Wilma, of a story that you have here and they kind of tie in, if you want to tell that little story. WILMA: Well, [00:04:00] when the Snake River Stampede was looking for publicity, thought somebody dreamed up it’d be great to have a rattlesnake hunt. And a rattlesnake – FLORENCE: When was this, what year? Just roughly. WILMA: would’ve been about 1935, 36. So the group of [simple-minded man?] organized the expedition into Owyhee County and they found a few snakes and they gathered them up and they brought them home and the rodeo board ordered some gourmet canned rattlesnake meat that was advertised someplace, and the little infinitesimal amounts. And they ordered all these hamburgers, made out of good, edible beef, and they sprinkled a few drops of this rattlesnake meat, [00:05:00] this canned rattle snake meat on so it would be authentic. And they offered those for free down at the city hall. They were going to serve these free hamburgers made out of rattlesnake meat so they thought. And you know, there was some very few takers there. They had all that hamburger left and nobody had ordered it. They really believed that it was rattlesnake made meat and they just assumed they’d go buy their hamburger someplace else. (laughter) But it was a real good publicity stunt, because people came from miles just to see who was going to be brave enough to eat rattlesnake meat. (laughs) FLORENCE: Now, along with the stampede, Carolyn was... WILMA: She was the Rodeo Queen in 1951. FLORENCE: Is that right? WILMA: That year my dad died Carolyn was rodeo queen. She was so bashful and so shy, since I’ve asked her -- why she was about [00:06:00] 20 and inexperienced -- why couldn’t she have been Rodeo Queen when she was a little older? FLORENCE: And then she’s a musician. And has gone many places. Playing for the Western group. WILMA: She was one of those playing at the park. And she traveled with the sons of the pioneers, and she traveled with [Rex Allen?] a few times. And then the last time she left, she went with Ken Curtis, who was known as Festus on Gunsmoke. And she traveled a whole season from Calgary, Stampede, toured down south and everything. And that year, Ken Curtis retired from traveling and Carolyn retired too because she couldn’t leave me to take care of everything here while she traveled. She traveled with a [pop?] [00:07:00] band before she went with him, but her heart and soul was with the Western music, so she went back to that. Back then, you can’t travel and run the cattle ranch in Garden Valley. She had a choice. FLORENCE: Now, you said that you specialized in ranches and farms rather than residents. As you think back over your real estate years, what ranch or farm sale stands out in your mind? Or sales? What stands out in your mind? WILMA: One of the oddest things that I ran across, we sold a big cattle range over by [Ironsides?], Oregon. Now, if you’ve never been to Ironsides Oregon, you don’t show a cattle ranch from the paved roads. You have to go way off, down some little lanes and roads. And this was a big [00:08:00] ranch in there. And the man we took over, looked at it, was from Italy. He spoke with a broken accent. Between the two of us, we had an awful hard time figuring out what it was he’d want. But anyway, he came back from thereafter. The point is, you had to go in there and you stayed overnight with the owner of the ranch, and you rode on a horse to show him the ranch. That’s where I had to be able to ride a horse. You can’t sell a ranch sitting in the living room looking out and pointin’ out the assets. So he went back, and he said, “I’ll send my son and his daughter out here, and if they like it, I’ll buy it.” And so in around a week, his son showed up. Now his son spoke excellent English, but his wife was from Italy. [00:09:00] They had gone back to Italy and bought him a nice, well- trained housewife. And so he took her up there to show her this place, and at that time he went over to Bend and Cambridge, and there was one hill that was just quite a winding road. Was quite a drop off to one side. It was a kind of a winding snake-y sort of road. And as we came back on that one side, that girl tried to open the car door and jump out. He yelled and I screamed, and I finally got her to stop. He got her in the middle and where she couldn’t get to the door, and asked her what was wrong, and she said if he bought that and she’d live back there, she’d never learned to speak English and she wanted to get [00:10:00] out and be like a modern [girl?], so she wasn’t quite as downtrodden as they had thought, because women’s lib -- they must have reached into Italy, because definitely she didn’t wanna live back there where she couldn’t learn to speak English. So we came back, and the father-in-law was still here in the Radley, at the hotel and he said, “Well, doesn’t wanna live there, we’ll ship her back to Italy.” So she agreed. And you know, I met her about five years later and she spoke good English and she joined clubs, [the whole thing?], the 4-H and the Ringleaders of Modern Society. But she was not the picture of a true Italian wife that’s concerned only live with home and babies and husband. She really lived it up. But that was the most [00:11:00] interesting sale that I made. And it’s a sample of what you had to do. You didn’t, you didn’t just drive them out and find out that this is about a pretty house and a nice view, and they wanted to know a whole lot more about it than that. FLORENCE: Would you say that most of your sales have been to people in the area? Was that unusual to have someone come as you say, from Italy and so on? We’re most of your sales, or I should say, are most of your sales to local names that you have known? Are they not? WILMA: Back in 1940, 50, 60, most of your sales were people I hadn’t spoke with. A lot of Californians. A great many we sold from Nebraska and Kansas and in there. This this is [00:12:00] the only one from outside the United States borders: I had one Dutch looking for a dairy farm, and they did locate here, but I couldn’t understand them. Now, that’s whole thing. FLORENCE: Well, when you first went into real estate, were you at that time specializing in farms and ranches, or were you always having to? There aren’t very many of you in town who specialize. WILMA: You go in with your father and that’s all he knows is land. He wouldn’t know how to show a hat. So the only time we sold houses, we sold somebody on the farm and then he moved to town and we sold him a house then, so we don’t have a big backlog of big clients that we sold houses. We’d sold some, but not in comparison with land. Because my husband was engaged in land and cattle and my father and [00:13:00] everybody I knew seemed to be that. So automatically when they wanted a farm, a cattle ranch, they came to someone that’s engaged in that business. And I know another time I took one of these [modernists?] out here up by [Naples?] someplace and it was -- [you had these siphon tubes?]. Now, those of you who’ve never sat at a siphon tube knows that it’s not a simple matter, a two-year-old kid can just make a big success of it. He can slap that siphon tube in with his thumb over the hole and start it, but we go down this [digway?] to show this place, and here’s all these siphon foods, irrigating this field on my right, and this man was some [bikey?] someplace, and he said, “Stop, I want to see what this is like.” So he gets out and he picks up a couple of siphon tubes to look at them. [00:14:00] Before we go on, we had to start those siphon tubes again. We couldn’t let that farmer come out and find that was two of the siphon tubes dry down in the middle of the field. Let me tell you, it was an hour and a half before between him and -- [down in that ditch drive, it was about that siphon tubes?]. (laughter) FLORENCE: It looked simple. WILMA: Looked so simple. And did you ever try to explain to a man from someplace else what those [leafcutter bee shacks?] were out there in the middle of a field? They looked just like little outhouses scattered around the field of alfalfa seeds. And he tried to tell a man that’s got -- you’ve got a bee but what’s the -- but what you got ’em in there for? You know, it’s supposed to pollinate the seeds, but trying to explain it to him without getting out and get the board and saying, “Here it bores the holes in and it lays its tags in [00:15:00] there. And that’s the way it works.” So eventually, you get the words, you closed their [language?]. FLORENCE: As you have seen property values going back to 1946, since you started your business, how have you seen the economy [adapt?]. In the first place, prior to 1946 when the coast and other metropolitan areas near depression, Nampa really did not know depression as depression, so when we came in in 1946 into the real estate and ranches, was that an up year as far as -- that was they -- (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WILMA: People were moving out of the depression. Now, that was a more optimistic attitude, and also the fact that at our time things were priced down [00:16:00] lower. You could buy -- in Nampa here -- $7,500 would buy you an average little two-bedroom house. Get $500 [down?]. Now, today that same home would be $45,00 or $40,000, and they would want more than $500 down. A lot of the land firms -- the Federal Land Bank can mortgage them. And Federal Land Bank was anxious to get big farm in production. So if the farmer could pay the water and the taxes and a little interest on the mortgage, they would give him x number of years to get them ready to buy. And so it was easy to make savings. Because a man didn’t have to have 25,000 to 30,000 to get in business. FLORENCE: And interest was there. WILMA: That’s right, interested of [00:17:00] seven percent was considered high. You could buy a business, you could buy a little motel the same way. You could trade them, you could trade a house for so-and-so, and it was easy to make savings. FLORENCE: So then in ’46 and in there were high years. I don’t mean high in price. I mean good for sales. And then what other years -- and now you’ve been in it almost 40 years, 40 years next year, 1986. What had been the pilots, when had the good years been in real estate? WILMA: The good years. In 1952, we had a little recession that slowed people down. Adjustment periods. Then in about 1956, it picked up. And from 1956 to [00:18:00] 1970, the [full years?], things went up and up and a lot of people made [fortunes?] FLORENCE: Fourteen years? Wow. WILMA: And then in ’73, they had the gas shortage, which leaded to fear into our domain there?]. You know, you saw pictures of Nampa and Boise Valley [bore a turnpike?]. They really didn’t get hit by any of these. For me, 1973 was a good year, and yet you saw the pictures on TV of the lines a mile long at the gas stations, and it was a terrific shock to the experts, dealers, you know, the mobile homes and the campers and so forth, because they were scared they wouldn’t be able to get gas ’til they got out of town. So from 1973, ’74, about, [00:19:00] had hurt a little economically because of that gas shortage. FLORENCE: But if you ever really being hurt as much as – WILMA: No, I always said people were trying to [get out?]. We were the last to feel the depression, maybe we’d be the first to last to pick it up, but it was been good for this community until about 1979 we noticed a slowdown. And it’s kept slowing and slowing and slowing until now. Then it’s a question of finding people who can afford the payments and the interest, even though we interest is down. But it’s really slow for real estate, because it isn’t as easy just to go out and order somebody $500 down on the $7,500 house that you can pay for in few years. FLORENCE: I’m certain being in real [00:20:00] estate, you’re always close to land values. When the land for the current Nampa High School was bought, clear out there on the edge of town, did you along other people debate why they would put a high school out that far? WILMA: I think they paid $22,000, if I remember right. It was something of that sort eight. [And we also had plans to go way out there for it. [Open the bridge, the way the city was built?] FLORENCE: No, I don’t think so. And when you went to high school, did you go out towards [the city lines?]? WILMA: Up on [Tyler Boulevard?] FLORENCE: And so when you went to Kennedy, did you only went through grade school? It was a grade school. WILMA: There wasn’t a junior high. FLORENCE: Oh, so you went eight years to grade school and then four years to high [00:21:00] school. And this high school is where Annie Laurie Bird was. WILMA: Yeah. (inaudible) FLORENCE: When you talked about politics, and of course I can see that gleam in your eye, you truly enjoyed that, didn’t you? That was when I knew you. Do you remember when you went over to the dinner for [Cecil D Andrus?]? WILMA: Yeah. FLORENCE: And I was so impressed when he remembered my name when we came out. And when I see him today, he still remembers my name. Isn’t that phenomenal? WILMA: He’s almost too good, the fact that he could remember more names than I never did know how to. FLORENCE: Mm-hmm. And then I saw you speaking. Don’t you remember the time that you spoke? And I can’t even remember when. You were talking, telling stories from your book and telling stories about Nampa and [00:22:00] ranches and farms and that sort of thing, and I tried to remember where that was, but you did speak around there. WILMA: Oh I spoke at lots of places. I spoke to bunch of university women, lots of girls there. And one of them said to me, “Miss Patterson, which university did you attend?” (laughs) FLORENCE: And another time I recall, and again, vaguely as far as date is concerned, [Venice?] was having some doubt, what was that? It was having to do with cosmetology? WILMA: Yes. Each of ’em had to flip on a skit. FLORENCE: Oh, that’s right. And you wrote a skit. WILMA: Yeah. And she said, “Can you dream up a little skit?” So I borrowed Caroline’s western outfit. [Gowns?] Don’t you remember that? (laughs) FLORENCE: Yes, now I remember. [00:23:00] WILMA: (laughs) That was a lot of fun. My goodness’s, I’ll never forget this, she has this mood [grad?] and she got up and introduced us. (inaudible) and just broke her in half. (inaudible) FLORENCE: In sort of summarizing your life, and going back to going to Kennedy and going to Nampa High, seeing a stampede, and we haven’t said anything about the Harvest Festival, but being located where you are, certainly you were close to the Harvest Festival. Would you like to see that come back? WILMA: Oh, that was the highlight of that town. It should come back, because it involved everyone. The merchants, the people, every civic club, hub, something down there. And the streets would fill with people, [00:24:00] that was the entertainment, just to go down and walk around and watch the people. FLORENCE: So then you went into real estate the ranching farm area, and still a broker, went in and got your broker’s license and are now, and have moved from in town to what was then out of town, and then acquired the range and so on. What could be your summary of your years in this area in Nampa? Do you feel they were good to you? WILMA: I feel that this area has been good to me, that there’s nothing that I can complain about economically. It’s been rewarding socially, it’s been rewarding. And as far as enjoyment, where in the [00:25:00] world would you be able to find a place where you can live, earn a living, fish, hunt, hike, hey, right a horse? Where can you be an individual as much as you can be in the Nampa area, because there was no limit. This is not a snobby town. You can be anything you want to be as long as you don’t hurt your neighbor. FLORENCE: And accepting. WILMA: And I think that this has been, to me, a rewarding area. I’ve never had the desire to live any place else. And fact of the matter is, I have no desire to tour Europe and see the old buildings over there when we can look at the city hall and some of the new buildings here and have just as much history as they have over there. So I [00:26:00] have, I feel that the Lord has been good to me here, and I have no complaints about anybody or anything. FLORENCE: That’s, that’s a great final statement. WILMA: Thank you. (laughs) END OF RECORDING Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nampa Oral History Collection Description An account of the resource Oral histories recorded 1984-1986 for Nampa's Centennial celebration. About 60 individuals shared their recollection of the early days of living in Nampa. Some of these people's stories relate to photos in the Historic Photo Exhibit. Click on the name or subject listed under "Relation" to discover more details about life in Nampa. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984-1986 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Nampa Centennial Committee Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Florence Taylor Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Wilma Patterson Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Wilma Patterson Description An account of the resource Wilma describes growing up in Nampa after moving to the area with her family at a young age. She details her school experience as well as what youth did for entertainment at the time. As an adult she went into real estate, specializing in farms and ranches, and discusses changes in property value over time. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985, June 13 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nampa Centennial Committee Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Interviews recorded for the library's oral history program are copyrighted to the Nampa Public Library which maintains rights to reproduce the recordings in all existing and future formats for the purposes of preservation and access. Researchers may quote portions of interviews in non-commercial projects, unless otherwise noted. Proper credit should be given. No part of the interviews may be used in commercial, for-profit projects without permission from Nampa Public Library. Dams Dance Hall Entertainment Movie theaters Rattlesnakes Real estate School building projects Schools Snake River Stampede Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nampa Oral History Collection Description An account of the resource Oral histories recorded 1984-1986 for Nampa's Centennial celebration. About 60 individuals shared their recollection of the early days of living in Nampa. Some of these people's stories relate to photos in the Historic Photo Exhibit. Click on the name or subject listed under "Relation" to discover more details about life in Nampa. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984-1986 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Nampa Centennial Committee Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document (Transcript of oral interview) JULIA JOLLEY: Okay. Start at the beginning, and tell me about Nana’s sisters. GERALDINE WINTER: In the 1920s, my mother and her eight sisters were arising in the morning ahead of each other in order to get a fair share of tortoise shell hair pins. The last one dressed and combed had a skimpy number to keep her rats -- a small hair piece which was worn over each ear -- in place. I was a little girl with my brother and sister who spent summer vacations with our paternal grandparents who lived seven miles north of Nampa on a farm. There was no indoor bathroom, no electricity. Saturday night, mother insisted we return home to Nampa to have a bath, shampoo, and attend Sunday school on Sunday morning. Then mother cooked for a threshing crew during the harvest season. The crew [00:01:00] consisted of a couple of fellows who traveled with the threshing machine, plus as many neighbors as were necessary to do the work. The noon meal was provided by the owner of the farm where they were threshing. Grandmother baked for days a bounteous noon meal. I remember the year that the recipe for angel food cakes was new and popular. As was the custom, all the food was put on the table before the men sat down. There were grandmother’s two or three angel food cakes all sliced on the table. The men pitched in and ate the cake as if it were bread. Grandmother didn’t recover from this for days, and she never served angel food cake to them again. In the ’20s and ’30s, we could skip grades in grade school so it was possible for a bright youngster to graduate from high school at an earlier age [00:02:00] than now. In the ’30s, the Depression was felt in Nampa. I remember committee meetings were held for the junior/senior prom to decide whether or not the boys would be allowed to send the girls corsages. They cost $2 or $3, $5 for the most elaborate. Anyway, the vocal parents won, and for the prom that year, there were no corsages. My father was assistant postmaster and supervisor for the present building of the present post office before he died. We never seemed to have a father at Christmastime for he worked along with the other employees until all the bulk of holiday mail was sorted and delivered. There was no quitting and going home at five PM. [00:03:00] One of the two family entertainments was playing poker. Often my aunts and uncles would come to our house for an evening of cards. They played on our round oak dining room table covered with an Indian blanket. If, by chance, my grandparents drove up in their Dodge Touring Car, the uncles grabbed the four corners of the blanket and hid it, plus its contents of cards and chips, in the closet. My grandparents disapproved of all card-playing. This same Dodge Touring Car that belonged to my grandfather occasionally took all the family to Parma to visit relatives there. We left very early in the morning and returned about dark. It was all-day drive. When the women in the ’20s became brave enough to have their hair cut or bobbed, a new business was born: the beauty parlor or [00:04:00] beauty shop. Ed Reeby had a barber shop, so it was natural that his wife should take a beauty course and establish a shop in the rear of the barber shop. I remember on the wall, Josephine Reeby had framed and hung one silver dollar and a quarter with a notation that that was her pay from her first customer, Mrs. Flora, who had received a shampoo and a Marcelle. One of the customs was to park your family car downtown on Saturday night. The family sat in the car and watched people go by as you ate Rodeo candy bars -- which were just new -- or drank A&W Root Beer. The stores were open until nine on Saturday night, and closed all day on Sunday. JJ: Now, tell me about the Waldorf. GW: The Waldorf was a cigar store [00:05:00] and a pool hall which my Uncle Brownie, Clarence Brown, owned and managed. And it was very popular because it was a place where pool tournaments were held. Much as we have bridge tournaments now, they had pool tournaments. My father was a sharp expert pool player and was the champion pool player in Nampa for two years that I remember. He was awarded a cue which had an engraved brass plate on it for his award for the championship. Then when we were in high school, we had football rallies, and big bonfires, and, of course, the snake dance downtown. And always this long snake dance went through the pool halls including the Waldorf. It was [00:06:00] the only time that girls got to in the pool hall, and probably some of the younger boys. But that was one of the attractive things in the rally to go in the pool halls. JJ: Get to go in the pool hall. What did children wear in school back in the ’20s, early ’30s? GW: We wore long cotton hose. Sometimes they were white and sometimes they were black. Finally, they became a beige color. And the girls wore sateen bloomers. They were either white or black. They had elastic on the legs that came just above the knees, and elastic around the waist. Then in the winter time, when we couldn’t wear knee socks, we wore garter belts, and these garter belts held these long ugly cotton socks up. And it was always a great day in the spring [00:07:00] when you could take off the garter belts and the long socks and put on knee socks, but it was also very daring. And I remember one time one of my friend’s mothers called my mother and said, “What do you mean by letting Mary Margaret wear knee socks to school?” But mother was very progressive, and she saw that her children were in the latest fashion. She was so progressive that one time she had the bathroom remodeled and repainted, and she had it painted a very bright and attractive lavender. And Clarence Radshew who was the popular plumber in town went home, and told his wife that Mrs. Heideger had the most passionate bathroom in Nampa because it was purple. Also, she was very fond of dishes, dishes of all kinds. And I remember when she first brought home a new set [00:08:00] of dishes and it was green, very green pottery. Until that time I guess they had used China and nicer dishes, but they started making pottery, and this was a very green. Her neighbor, Mrs. Burningame, came over the next morning after the dishes were unpacked, and mother said, “Well, Ethel, how do you like my new dishes?” And Mrs. Burningame said, “Well, they’re all right unless you (inaudible) some morning. (laughter)” JJ: You always wore skirts and blouses to school? GW: Yes, I think so. Although I remember some pretty dresses we had, but they were ruffled and very feminine looking. JJ: Nobody wore jeans? GW: We didn’t even know about jeans. I remember when the first pants as such were worn by girls and they were known as lounging pajamas. [00:09:00] Of course, they didn’t look like our lounging pajamas today now, or pant suits, or jeans, or anything like that, but they had big bell bottoms around the ankles. I remember mine was black sateen with orange. Must have looked like Halloween, but I thought it was dashing at the time. And I think I was in the eighth grade, and we had a very popular teacher, Mrs. Luzadder. She had taught hundreds of children in Nampa. And one day, a girl came to her class in what was called lounging pajamas. Mrs. Luzadder was horrified. I can see her yet -- she went over to the closet, got down her own coat, a long coat, wrapped it around this girl, and sent her home. And she said, “Now, you tell your mother that I’ve sent you home because you’re not properly dressed, and you’re to change this outrageous costume you have on, and put on a dress, and then you come back to school.” And the little girl did. JJ: [00:10:00] Didn’t have to go to the principal or anything? GW: No. No, I don’t think there were any demerits, or flunks, or anything of the kind. JJ: Tell me about taking music lessons when you were young. GW: We usually started about age nine, I think that was the popular time for girls and boys to start taking at least piano lessons. And we all took from a man whose name was Ben Moffitt. He was just a charming man. I think at that early age I fell in love with him. His music was all classical that he taught us. However, he did tell me that he played for dances on Saturday night. One time he said he wished he had a nickel for every time he played Johann Strauss’s “Maibetter Waltz” on Saturday night. It was the popular tune of the time. [00:11:00] He had recitals in his home, and the beginners played at the beginning of the recital, and then as you became more advanced, your turn was near the end. I always dreamed that someday I would get to play at the end. I’m not sure I ever did, but I remember a young man that was older than the rest of us, he always got to play at the end. He was Harold Packer, and he played beautifully. Mr. Moffitt, as I recall, was the father of the Boise Music Week. It was rather his brainchild that there be a music week, and Boise was chosen because it was larger and there were more facilities over there for having it. JJ: Did you take dancing lessons, too? GW: Yes. Along with the piano lessons from Mr. Moffitt, [00:12:00] all the little girls in Nampa took dancing lessons from May Van Destig who just recently passed away. She was the darling of us all, and so patient. She taught us, and then she taught our children, and then she even taught some grandchildren. She was educated in the east, and trained so her dancing was all very proper and it was of a classic nature, too. You learned the toe dancing and that kind of thing. Later on, she did some tap dancing, but usually it was all ballet and toe dancing. She, too, had recitals, and our mothers spent weeks making costumes and we spent weeks rehearsing, and Mrs. Van remained calm through it all. She was really one of the charming ladies that ever lived in Nampa. JJ: Did boys take [00:13:00] lessons, too? GW: A few, but they were considered sissy in those days, not athletic as boy dancers are considered now. JJ: Do you still have that picture of the dancing class? GW: Yes. We used to have parties in the old parish hall that belonged to the Episcopal Church, and it was a nice fair-sized hall with a stage, and we had recitals there. Then one time when we were in high school like about sophomores, we had a costume party there. And Mrs. Van Destig was the -- I’m sure the instigator and the chaperone for it. And both boys and girls went in costumes. And, of course, being just freshman and sophomores, we didn’t know much about ballroom dancing, but, bless her, she danced with every boy that evening. And we all were in the same boat, so we all felt quite [00:14:00] comfortable learning to do ballroom dancing from Mrs. Van. JJ: Do you want to tell me about the Interurban? GW: The Interurban was another form of family entertainment. After church on Sunday or Sunday school, the family would take their picnic basket which the mother had filled with goodies, and we would get on the Interurban streetcar in Nampa, and we would go around the loop. I don’t remember if you could go both ways or not, but it went from Caldwell, and then out to Middleton into Star, and into Eagle, and Boise, and Meridian, and then back to Nampa. And it took a long afternoon to do that, and you would get off the Interurban and have your picnic lunch, and get back on, and then come on in. It didn’t have a very [00:15:00] regular schedule, and on Sunday’s it was more for fun than anything else. But it was a form transportation between the cities, and they called it the loop around the valley that the Interurban made. JJ: And it would stop and let you picnic and then wait for everybody to get back on? GW: Oh, yes. Yes, no regular schedule on Sunday. JJ: Now, had some aunts and uncles that rode it over to Caldwell. GW: Yes, I think Aunt Eddis and Uncle Fred rode it over there to get married, didn’t they? They were in Boise, and I think they rode it to Caldwell to get married, and then they rode it from Caldwell to Nampa, and mother prepared the wedding breakfast for them that morning. And we little kids were all tittering and laughing about having a new uncle in the family, probably being just very obnoxious, but we thought it was fun. JJ: [00:16:00] What about the first car you had? GW: Our first car was a Star Touring Car with the icing glass shades on it for winter, you know? It was black, and, oh, my dad was so proud of it to think that he was able to buy a car. There weren’t too many of them in Nampa, but they were all about like that, they were all touring cars. And, of course, mother learned to drive. Daddy insisted that she did. So one afternoon, she took the neighbor lady, Mrs. Bowen, and her four children, and took us three, we all piled in, and mother took us for a ride around the neighborhood. Then when we returned home, she turned the corner to park in front of our house, but she just kept turning, and turning, and turning and she landed in a big poplar tree. But just made an accordion out of right front bender. Well, of course, she was in disgrace after showing off to the neighbor, [00:17:00] and the children, and everything. So she went in the house, and flung herself on the bed, and cried, and cried, and cried. Somebody let my dad know, or maybe he just came naturally, I don’t know, but he came home. And he laughed, and laughed, and laughed. He was a very even-tempered man and full of fun. He was a very pleasant man, loved jokes, and really, to him, life was one great big bowl of cherries. He loved it all. So, of course, he laughed, and laughed, and that made her cry louder and longer. But, eventually, he had the car repaired, good as new. And it was our custom out to go out to the ranch which was our paternal grandparents farm out north of Nampa. It was custom on Sunday to go out there for dinner after church. And we would have a big family dinner with grandmother Heideger [00:18:00] and return to Nampa in the evening. So Sunday came along, and it was time for us to go out for the dinner, and mother loved to go because she was so fond of grandmother Heideger. They were more like a mother and daughter than a daughter-in-law. So daddy said, “Well, you know, we’re going out to the ranch for dinner as usual, but Jessie, you’re going to drive.” And she said, “Oh, no. I’m not. No, I’m not. I’m never going to drive again. Never, never, never.” And he said, “Well, we won’t go then. We’ll just stay home.” Well, of course, this bothered her terribly because she so loved to go, and all of us children wept and wailed to think we couldn’t go on Sunday. So, finally, she acquiesced and she drove out there. Well, then, of course, that was just the breaking the ice point, and from then on, she always drove. She drove until she was -- oh, I think almost 80 years old. JJ: Did you get to stay out on the farm and play with [00:19:00] children in the neighborhood? GW: Oh, yes. We had little neighborhoods friends out there. Clay Mill’s family had joined my grandfather’s farm, and he had -- Harry Mills was his only boy, and then he had four girls. We used to swim in the same ditch that divided the two farms, and I called it the drain ditch, but recently I met Helen Mills, and she said, “Oh, Margaret, don’t say that. It sounds so dirty. You’re supposed to call it the latteral.” So we shared the latteral in our young days, just swimming dog fashion out there in the water. Then, once in a while, Uncle Henry would take us frog fishing. And in the same ditch, there would be frogs, we would take a homemade fishing rod -- a branch of a tree with a line and a piece of red flannel on the end [00:20:00] because that’s what attracted the frogs -- and we would catch frogs under his supervision. And we’d take them home, and he’d clean them, and grandmother would cook frog legs for us which, of course, now in a fancy dining room is quite a delicacy, but we ate them and thought nothing of it. And as you cook them -- if you don’t know this -- as you cook them, they wiggle around in the pan. (laughs) So it was quite -- JJ: They’re still jumping. (laughs) GW: -- to us to watch the frog legs. JJ: Speaking of eating, what was it like to eat at the Dewey Palace? Did you eat there as a child? Was that fashionable? GW: Yes, very fashionable. And when I was in high school, one of my closest friends was Johanna Parlentley, and she stayed with the Brogdens who managed the dining room at that time. So lots of times, Johanna has taken me and two or three of the other girls, we’ve been back in the kitchen of the Dewey Palace [00:21:00] Hotel eating out of the huge refrigerator when the dining hour was all over. But it was a very pretty place. Mrs. Brogden was from Holland, and she had brought with her a collection of Delft plates. And there was a plate rail all around the dining room of these lovely pieces of dinnerware on them. It was all (inaudible). And Mr. and Mrs. Brogden were very colorful figures. They both, of course, were from Holland, and had quite an accent. And they had no children. I never knew if Johanna was a relative or just a very, very dear friend. Her name was probably -- she was French, so I don’t remember the connection about it, but they were awfully good to her and she was a sweet girl. So we used to go down there after school, [00:22:00] and play around, and we were in high school then, of course. JJ: Did you have like your prom party there? GW: Yes, I remember one prom there. We used to have a dinner and a dance, and they would have the dinners there, and then we would have the dance, usually, in the high school auditorium which was smaller than the ones now. It was out at -- well, what was the old West school? JJ: West? GW: Mhmm. Had it all decorated much as they do now, and the promenade. However, the music was entirely different. JJ: I’m sure. GW: You didn’t have any and rock ’n’ roll. JJ: What about other stores downtown and downtown Nampa back when you were in high school? Where did you go shopping on Saturday? GW: I can’t remember too much about that, but two main mercantile stores were the Golden Rule -- which later became C.C. Anderson’s [00:23:00] -- and Fox which later became Van England’s. And, of course, there’s the Fox Hy-Vee out at the mall, but those were the two main stores. I remember a dress shop that was run by a Mr. Smith. And most of the fashionable ladies bought their dresses from Smith’s. It was about where that Yesteryear bookstore is along there in that block. Then my grandfather had a blacksmith shop, and it was located where Nafziger’s Men’s Clothing Store is now. As the crow flies, it would only be about two or two and half blocks from the Roose home, grandmother and grandfather’s home which was at 224 16th Avenue South. And it’s said that grandmother could [00:24:00] stand on front porch of the house and call down to Frank and tell him to bring something home from the grocery story that she needed. She worked awfully hard. She had 12 children, and the standard of living, of course, at that time was entirely different than it is now. They made their own fun, and all the fun and entertainment was in the home. There were no bowling alleys, or picture shows, or things of that kind. And grandmother, of course, washed on the board -- had no appliances like that. And she baked on a wood stove, and she baked seven loaves of bread every day. But if she wanted to skip a day, then she would bake 11 loaves, and grandfather would bring a few loaves home from the bakery downtown. Imagine that. One year, she was voted the mother of the year in Nampa. And not because [00:25:00] of any great social talents or accomplishments, but because she had the most children. (laughter) JJ: Oh, dear. Twelve children. GW: Let’s see, mother would have been her third child, and she was the fourth white child born in Nampa. There were lots of Indians and Chinese babies, of course, that were born before mother. JJ: With 12 children, did Grandmother Roose have help? GW: She had a dressmaker who would come in -- I don’t know how often, once or twice a year probably -- and sew for these nine girls because with all the baking, and the washing, and the ironing, and just the things that you have to do every day, she had no time left over for sewing. So she would have this seamstress come in, [00:26:00] and grandma had a sewing machine, and the lady would fit, and cut, and get the girls all outfitted properly before school started. And then, of course, they used a lot of hand-me-downs, too. JJ: With 12 you could pass them down a while. GW: Yes. And mother remembers when grandfather would bring like maybe eight or ten pairs of shoes home, all different sizes, and they would be in issue boxes tied around with a string. He’d bring them home, and all the kids would sit down on the floor and try on the shoes that fit them. They didn’t go separately to the store to buy their shoes. And they all grew up with relatively normal feet, I think. (laughter) JJ: And Grandfather Roose wanted them all to wear shoes? GW: Oh, yes. It was a sign of poverty and a sign of neglect if a man couldn’t make enough money to keep his children in shoes. They might be in rag [00:27:00] and tatters on the top, but the philosophy was then that you must have your children with shoes. So these old rascals, of course, would run around barefoot all day long. Next to their home, there was an orchard there on 16th. And they would play in the orchard, they’d be barefoot all day, but when they saw their dad coming down the street, they all ran and got their shoes on because he would not have his friends say that Frank Roose’s kids went barefooted. JJ: You said that grandfather would bring home bread from the bakery. Did they have a grocery store or separate shops for everything? What was the first grocery store? GW: The first one I remember -- and I’m sure it wasn’t the first one -- but the first one I remember was called Hostetler’s. And it was a grocery store much as they had in those days. Of course, it wasn’t a supermarket at all, [00:28:00] but they weighed out things for you instead of so many packaged things. And there were no ready mixes and that kind of thing. There were fresh vegetables and fresh fruit. And then the bakery would be separate, the meat market was separate, and you bought your meat over the counter, it didn’t come in a cellophane package. And the first meat market I remember was Anketell’s, and then the other one was King’s. And those two were rather competitors in the business world downtown. Mr. Anketell continued just to have a meat market, but Mr. King branched out established the packing company which later became the Red Rose Packing Company. That was his trademark name, I think, the Red Rose. And then Barber’s bought it. And then a shoe store would be separate, too. Now, what was the name of the shoe store? [00:29:00] It was Mr. Barnadough that worked in it, and I don’t remember the name of the shoe store. There was a variety store that was Blake’s. Charlie Blake had a variety store, and, of course, we called it the five and dime, and you really could buy things for a nickel or ten cents. Quite different from the dime stores now. My grandmother always bought her glasses in the five and dime store. They didn’t go to ophthalmologists, or oculists, or anybody like that to have their glasses fit. There probably wasn’t one in town. But she would go in, and I remember going with her when I was just a little girl. And on the counter where the glasses were displayed, she would pick a pair up, put them on, and look to the back of the store, and then she’d try another pair on, look to the back of the store, and try on several pairs. [00:30:00] But I mean she’d find one that she thought would do for her. And then she’d try several pairs on to see which pair she thought would do for Poppy -- Poppy was my grandfather. So she would go home with two pairs of new glasses, one for her and one for him. And they didn’t have electricity in their house, so you know their eyes had to be very good to see with these kind of glasses with a coal oil lamp at night. JJ: To read and do sewing. GW: Read and do sewing. She did very fine sewing on a treadle machine, an old quiet treadle machine. I was five years old when she taught me to sew on the sewing machine. She was a woman of great patience. Mother wouldn’t let me sew on her machine because it always had to be in good running order, and she just knew a five-year-old little girl would have it all in need of repair. But grandmother was more patient. She’d let me sew on her sewing machine, [00:31:00] and we made doll clothes. We made a doll house of two orange crates, and grandmother helped me paper the walls, and we made carpeting for the floor, and we made cardboard furniture. And she was very ingenious, and very creative and original. So, of course, I just adored her. JJ: You mentioned doctors. Who was the first doctor in Nampa? Do you remember? GW: Well, Dr. Smith delivered me. I’ve forgotten his first name. His daughter was my age, her name was Dorothy, we were very good friends when we were little girls. And then Dr. Kellog, Dr. George Kellog, Sr. After those two, then came Dr. Sway. Those are the first three that I remember. There was a Dr. Cole before then, and he delivered some of grandmothers’ babies. END OF RECORDING Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Geraldine "Margaret" Winter Description An account of the resource Although there is no audio file available, Geraldine Winter (who also seems to have gone by Margaret) was interviewed as part of the Nampa Centennial Committee’s oral history project. She describes being raised in Nampa, sharing details of entertainment and fashion over time, her experiences in school, as well as details about her parents and grandparents. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985, May 8 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nampa Centennial Committee Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Interviews recorded for the library's oral history program are copyrighted to the Nampa Public Library which maintains rights to reproduce the recordings in all existing and future formats for the purposes of preservation and access. Researchers may quote portions of interviews in non-commercial projects, unless otherwise noted. Proper credit should be given. No part of the interviews may be used in commercial, for-profit projects without permission from Nampa Public Library. Subject The topic of the resource Transcription Oral History Relation A related resource <a href="https://nampalibrary.omeka.net/items/show/768" title="https://nampalibrary.omeka.net/items/show/768">Agnes Winter</a> <a href="https://nampalibrary.omeka.net/items/show/769" title="William "Bill" Winter">Bill Winter</a> Children's clothing Dance Hall Dances Doctors Fashion Interurban railroad Stores