https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/76642/archive/files/cf6839e8233a67243788f5322999b97a.mp3?Expires=1789603200&Signature=bObOjIUx-iqLFsL0puNb1845G6ndHMHZArl3wLkWtMLK64n3Mi4RtGRPSbGHmKqowluG19WOzJxkhsg6FLZgT0IAw7IDQfv1kpSvty3sd58RRp9u0VLy%7EbhGemg6drHlP8MHUHTpsRqxBmbWoK7-IwuKe4OO7O5yRJaM%7E3S62Xlat0fEvx4ELZVV89l4%7E7dSVOLy54K%7EZUTti9NwgalmxFaBwdmY9gJX90XbQlTm%7EM0XYICvQitnlv3OqviVRy6OsFRrWdDV55%7EAWm2u5qkAzsj3qp%7EWV7QJcKEjJZbyqTV%7E-AMTeF4SRkXepDsJymoNnvR1ur%7Ez46jX19ZQbZzlqQ__&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=1789603200&Signature=T7pS5UGqPyiD8znS4hQiH9p-P%7EcbekgclPI4Vjomx4fxJI2jxJmsfckcVJaasb2f1Y7c8J2SNq%7Ehn%7Ey1UpDhLstlUQyCO-acc-9bhg9W9dImpUbacyG5oWeMefTxhsGmF4gf6EwoVC55atJikSyqCKOM-tj7ywxvnXM5407V6-oZGup-xn3DurqdffCwWtLDjNyGHt7sEVhtzCRJiRG2j2OfG96OXNAd%7EvDfJzN3IwHlaCnFQF7aNLCscL4-RhkS0oHOrU12W8W-VLfVnR1Di9HH%7EtoY36NMM%7EsOVBsIJGEKft0TJqDSwzSJ0Kje4jBc30jdShvZdwcRLQandvFjOw__&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