Brigham D. Madsen, Salt Lake City, Utah: an interview by Winston Erickson, January 21, 2003: Saving the Legacy tape nos. 546 & 547

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Brigham D. Mad en 21 January 200 in a physical education class because I was so tall and activ and ven th ugh I hadn t had any professional training I played basketball pretty well. But this was at th nd f my sophomore year and there was no chance to ... and I was so busy working with my father, I don't think I could have gone out for basketball anyway. WE: As you were real young, in grade school, did you have any favorite activities with children in your neighborhood? Or was your social life mostly around your family? BDM: Oh, just outdoor games that we played. I can't remember the names of them now, but mostly that way. I was always involved in working. My father grew up with a Carl Madsen, Sr., a convert from Denmark, and he brought the old school autocratic system with him and my father and his brothers hardly ever had a chance to go to school. They just worked, worked, worked, that's all they did. I learned to work with my father. WE: I see. So you spent your youth working whenever possible. Let's see, the Depression hit when you were about fourteen, fifteen years old, right? BDM: Yes, the crash on Wall Street occurred when I was fifteen, going on sixteen. We had a rough time during the Depression like everybody else, but I was very lucky with the father that I had. He was what, in those days, they called a "rustler". He would rustle jobs as a carpenter and he would work, sometimes, not for money, but in exchange for goods. He'd give labor and people would give him potatoes or whatever. So we got along pretty well because of my father who was a hardworking, innovative kind of person about getting jobs. WE: Once you graduated from high school, let's see, that would have been ... BDM: Nineteen thirty-two. 6