Robert Keith "Scotty" Allan, Magna, Utah: an interview by Becky B. Lloyd, August 11, 2004: Saving the Legacy tape no. 697

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ROBERT KEITH " OTTY" ALLAN 11 2004 CO: John and Ruby Allan. Her maiden name was Williams. H r fath r had th fir t barbershop in Garfield. It was across the street from a big hotel. They had four h t 1 in Garfield at one time. People used to live in them and some of them had families in th r places and they'd go home on weekends or something. It was a pretty good-sized town at one time. So anyway, my father came fr~m Scotland and he went to Denver with his aunt, his mother's sister, when he was seventeen years old. That's when he came over from Scotland. That's an interesting thing. I asked him, I said, "How was the steerage when you came over." I figured he came that way. He said, "Oh, no. I didn't come steerage." I said, "You didn't?" He said, "No, I came second class." I said, "Why was that?" He said, "I saved up enough for it, because the only ones that they (US Immigration authorities on Ellis Island) gave physicals to were in steerage." He had asthma real bad when he was young, so he waited until he got enough money to come second class. He didn't have to be inspected on Ellis Island. They just let him through. BEC: Really? SCO: That was a surprise to me. I'd never heard that before but that's a historical thing worth knowing. Anyway, he came into Denver and got a job with the D& RG Railroad. He worked himself up pretty fast. A promotion came up and they wouldn't give it to him because he was too young, so he quit. He decided to go to California and he came through here and they were hiring at Kennecott. This was in about 1906 or '07 or '08 or sometime. Anyway, he stopped into a hotel and he got a job and was working here and he walked out on the porch one afternoon and my mother caught him. He spent forty- 3