Betty Barney Evenson, interviewed for the Aileen H. Clyde 20th Century Women's Legacy Archive, 2018

The Aileen H. Clyde 20th Century Women's Legacy Archive oral history project was created to record the personal histories of 20th century women; to record memories and emotions related to historical events and social change processes; and to explore women's participation in and response to social and cultural changes. The project is conducted by Resources for the Study of Social Engagement, a non-profit organization, and is supported in part by the Clyde Family Foundation and by the Aileen H. Clyde 20th Century Women's Legacy Archive at the University of Utah.

Betty Barney Evenson Interviewed by Elisha Buhler Condie for the th Aileen H. Clyde 20 Century Women’s Legacy Archive Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah February 12, 2018 1 Betty Barney Evenson Interviewed by Elisha Condie for the Aileen H. Clyde 20th Century Women’s Legacy Archive Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library University of Utah Born: October 28, 1919, in Salt Lake City Parents: John Forrest Barney and Mary Eliza (Lyda) West Barney Husband: Nephi Nathaniel Evenson (b. Nov. 3, 1917) Children: Lynn Barney Evenson Jimmie Forrest Evenson Barbara Jeanne Evenson Haugsoen The Aileen Clyde Life History Project is conducted by Resources for the Study of Social Engagement, a non-profit organization, and is supported in part by the Clyde Family Foundation, and by the Aileen H. Clyde 20th Century Women’s Legacy Archive at the University of Utah. Elisha Buhler Condie conducted and transcribed this interview. Edited by Dawn Hall Anderson. Footnotes were added by Dawn Anderson and Marie Cornwall and approved by the interviewee. Elisha Buhler Condie prepared the final manuscript. The focus of the interview project was threefold: 1) to record the personal histories of 20thcentury women, 2) to record memories and emotions related to historical events and social change processes, and 3) to explore women’s participation in and response to social and cultural change. 2 Interview (February 12, 2018; Betty passed away December 31, 2018) Elisha Condie (EC): Okay, so I’m going to say for the recorder that today is February 12, 2018. I’m with Betty Evenson, and Betty, tell me when and where you were born. Betty Evenson (BE): I was born on a snowy day, Salt Lake City, the LDS Hospital, October 28th, 1919. EC: Okay, and where in the order of children are you? BE: I’m the second. I had an older brother, but he died soon after I was born. Pyloric stenosis. 1 In those days they couldn’t treat it; he died of pneumonia because he regurgitated. Nowadays they do surgery right after birth if they know about it. EC: Oh how sad. So then you became the oldest? BE: Then I was really raised as the oldest in the family. EC: And where did you grow up? BE: In Salt Lake City out on Highland Drive: 3048 Highland Drive. I lived there from when I was about two and a half until I married. EC: Okay. Tell me, think back to when you were about ten years old. What was your life like when you were ten years old? BE: Well, I still had a father (he died when I was twelve), and we lived in a house that was over a hundred years old that my mother’s parents had lived in before they moved to California. The house was set back in because in those early days they would put the orchard in front and then the house and then have about a half-acre or so for a vegetable garden and more fruit trees in back. And my dad worked as a mechanic for Patterson and Howe in town, but in those days we also had to have cows and our own vegetable gardens because there was no social security or nothin’. And he worked at first twelve hours a day. EC: Was he a car mechanic? 1 Pyloric stenosis is a problem with a valve at the end of the stomach. Muscles thicken in the valve, which is called the pylorus. This can block or slow food passing from the stomach to the bowel. The most common symptom is regurgitation and/or vomiting after eating. John Forrest Barney, Jr. was born 4 June 1917 and died 11 February 1920. 3 BE: No, he was a machinist mechanic, and he could do everything—anything and everything! But the house was old; it only had one bedroom and the one advantage was it was a red brick house and they put adobe in it and so it really kept warm or cold through the year. So my mother was a stay-at-home mother and a fabulous cook. She said when she was married she couldn’t even cook water (chuckles), but because of growing our own food she learned to can and cook. EC: So the cows you kept and the orchards were just to feed your own family, not to sell? BE: Well, he sold the milk, the extra milk and the cream. So he would go to work and come home and work in the garden, feed the cows, and he planted vegetables. And he loved flowers! He planted flowers in front where he took out some old dead fruit trees. We had black walnuts; walnuts, cherry trees, plum trees, apple trees in front. He put a swing on that cherry tree so we had a place to play. A lot of bushes and we had an irrigation system for the lawn. To separate from the neighbors, we had a wire fence and he planted it with climbing roses, and he dug out a place in front, planted all kinds of flowers. I used to take them to the teacher! EC: So you went to school? BE: I started school when I was five because if my birthday was in November, I’d have to stay home another year, 2 but I started when I was five and walked to school. By ten I was in the William Penn school 3 and walked there. Of course they’ve taken that out and built a new one. EC: I know. It’s right in my neighborhood; I know just where that is! BE: Okay, well, at that time it was way up on the top of the hill; and we’d try to climb the hill in the winter and the boys’d push us down and we’d be late for school! (laughs) So we were in the old William Penn, and I had really nice teachers. And played—I loved to run. I was a good student; I always got a good grades. I loved to read. I learned to read when I was four. EC: Did your mom or dad teach you to read? BE: No, we had a neighborhood school in the summertime. There was a family that both the parents were teachers, and they had a lot of kids, so they’d hold summer schools and plays and 2 At the time the cut-off month was November. If a child turned five before November, they could start school that school year. Since there were no kindergartens at that time, children started school in first grade. Thus children who turned five in October could start school (first grade) but would be the youngest in their classes as they moved through the educational system. 3 William Penn Elementary was located on 9th East and 33rd South. 4 such. But I also kind of taught myself reading off of cereal boxes. Shredded wheat and cornflakes were the only two we had! Billboards, we’d go read them. And we didn’t have a car for a long time, but my grandfather gave his old Dodge to my dad. But at that time the street car ran in front and so he’d take that to work. But the house, when we first moved in it, had no electricity except one light in the kitchen, the pull-down lights, and all our heat was the coal stove in the kitchen and the living room. It was a Motorola coal stove heater. And let’s see, at ten years old we still didn’t have an indoor bathroom. It wasn’t until my mother was pregnant with my younger brother—he’s ten years younger than I am—that my dad remodeled the kitchen and put in a bathroom. EC: And that was about the time that the Great Depression 4 happened. Were you aware of that? BE: Well, it was just a little later in my life that the Great Depression came. EC: Did that affect the family? BE: Well yes, because my father died when I was twelve. 5 EC: And what did he die of? BE: Ruptured appendix. He had a stomachache, took a laxative! The doctor made home calls at that time and said he had to get him to the hospital. 6 It ruptured while he was operating on him and he died of gangrene. EC: Oh no! 4 The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to 1939 and was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its lowest point, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed. 5 John Forrest Barney, known as Forrest, born 21 June 1893 in Provo, Utah, died 27 May 1932 at age 38. 6 “My father died of ruptured appendix. He had been sick, with pain stomach upset for a few days. He refused to go to Dr. Calderwood who had an office in Salt Lake City. Instead, he took a laxative, thinking that should help. He got worse so my mother called the doctor and he came out to the house, and ordered my father to go the LDS Groves hospital immediately. . . . As a nurse later, I did see men recover from this affliction even in days before antibiotics so it was possible if he had been willing to see a physician earlier. Men have a harder time doing so than women.” Memories, “Meeting the Measure of My Creation - Life Journey of Betty Barney Evenson,” p. 28. (Hereinafter referred to as “Life Journey”.) https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/89539318?p=23307434&returnLabel=Betty%20Lida%20B arney%20(KWZH-725 (accessed 13 September 2019) 5 BE: So, we had this backyard he’d planted with the vegetables before he died, had taken out some of the trees, and so left my mother with all the yardwork to do. EC: And how many kids were there? Your mother had how many children when your father passed away? BE: Just the three of us. EC: There were three kids, and what did she do? Did she have to go find work? BE: Well, eventually she did. At that time, she applied for some kind of aid that they had. My father’s parents lived on 5th East and they had a huge house, a big family, and so family members helped. But Children’s Aid 7 or …? I can’t remember what it was and it was $20 a month to live on for the whole family. And course by then my dad had put in the bathroom; he sold the cows; he sold some of the land to help pay for that. Then the sewer came in front of the house and he had to dig around and connect to that, which was a good thing because we had the pump in back and so when we’d wash our hair, we’d put our head under the cold water and get the soap on it and then rinse. I still like a cold rinse on my hair! (laughs) And so, it was a little later, it was when my dad died, that the Depression was on. But it wasn’t on when I was ten. EC: Did you finish school? Did you get to stay in school? BE: Oh yes. EC: School was important to your family? BE: Oh yes, education. I had an aunt that was a teacher in the family. To get ahead you had to have an education. So, my parents were always pushing that, you know. I didn’t think anything other than getting to school and go to college and get a profession. You could either be a nurse or a teacher or a secretary, that’s the only three things, and I thought I’d be a secretary, but I just didn’t like that. 7 Children's Aid was founded in 1853 by Charles Loring Brace and a group of social reformers at a time when orphan asylums and almshouses were the only social services available for poor and homeless children in New York City. Children’s Aid operated lodging houses, fresh air programs, and industrial schools to support an estimated 30,000 poor and orphaned children living in the city’s streets, and pioneered the Orphan Train Movement. New York City and poverty have changed drastically since the 1850s, but Children’s Aid has continuously evolved to meet the changing needs of children, youth, and their families, often pioneering social programs that have found universal traction. https://www.childrensaidnyc.org/about/history-innovation (accessed 23 August 2019) 6 EC: So where did you go to high school? BE: Granite, and I went to Granite junior high EC: Yeah, I remember Granite Junior High and Granite High School. BE: I walked to school. We lived two miles from the school and you had to live two and a half to three to get the bus8. EC: Shoot! So you had to walk two miles; that’s quite a distance. BE: But it was good for me, and I could memorize things as I walked back and forth, and my sister [Helen 9] was two years behind me, so she followed along too. EC: So you had company when you were walking. BE: Uh-huh, and I decided I wanted to be an airline stewardess10, and those days [the 1930s] you had to be a nurse. EC: To be an airline stewardess you had to be a nurse? BE: Had to be a nurse to be a stewardess. EC: What made you interested in being an airline stewardess? What brought that to your attention? BE: I loved the airplanes, and they would fly low. You could wave to the aviator. EC: No way! 8 Granite High School was located 5th East and 33rd South in Salt Lake. Helen West Barney was born 30 May 1922, died 21 September 1993. 10 “In the early 1930s Western Air was the first to hire stewards. [Before then, attending to passengers was the responsibility of the co-pilot.] These stewards were responsible for seeing to the passenger needs, such as helping passengers board the aircraft, assisting with the baggage, serving refreshments and assuring that passengers put their cigars and cigarettes out. By the late 1930s, United Airlines, being the first, had hired female helpers. These stewardesses were registered nurses and the idea was that the passengers would feel much safer in the hands of the stewardess. Their responsibilities included attending to those who became air sick. . . . The airlines, as part of their hiring practices, required the women to take an oath in which they would not marry nor have children. If an attendant were to get married and or have a child, the airlines would terminate her employment with the airline.” Aviation Online Magazine http://avstop.com/history/history/flightattendant.html 9 7 BE: And our neighbor joined the Navy and he was out on an airline, and he’d come by and sometimes he’d wiggle the plane’s wings to say hello as he went by. So it was something new and fun and exciting. EC: And this was when you were in high school that you decided this? BE: Mhmm, yes, and so I applied and when I graduated went to Salt Lake General Hospital. I picked that one because they had an outpatient, an emergency, isolation for infectious diseases, and a lot of experiences you couldn’t get at the others. 11 EC: How long was their program? BE: Three years. 12 So I lived in the nursing home—and they’ve torn that down! (laughs) EC: So you didn’t live at home? You moved out and moved downtown? BE: I moved into the Nursing Home 13. Yeah, you had to live in. You couldn’t marry; you had to live in. And we took some classes up at the University. They’d bus us up and down. 11 Nurse education in the U.S. began in 1873 with three programs based on Florence Nightingale’s ideas. By 1900 nurse training schools in the country numbered in the hundreds, though they were under the auspices of sponsoring hospitals rather than universities and most closely resembled apprenticeships: “These programs followed a fairly typical pattern. The school was either affiliated with or owned by a hospital that provided the students with the clinical experience considered necessary for the education of a nurse. Students received two to three years of training. While in the program students carried out the majority of patient care activities offered in the hospital, receiving only a modicum of classroom education in the form of lectures on patient care and related subjects. At the end of the educational program, students received a diploma and were eligible to seek work as a trained nurse. These early nurse education programs were, in reality, little more than apprenticeship programs that used student nurses for their labor. This pattern of hospital-based nurse education persisted until the mid-twentieth century. . . . [Gradually,] the increasingly complex demands of patient care led the schools to increase the amount of theoretical instruction and decrease the amount of direct work performed by students.” https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/nhhc/american-nursing-an-introduction-to-the-past/ (accessed 9/9/2019) 12 Betty graduated from high school in 1936. She enrolled in the Salt Lake General Hospital School of Nursing, then located on 21st South and State Street, and graduated as a Professional Registered Nurse in August of 1940. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/sources/KWZH-725. In her memories recorded as “Life Journey” (p. 38), Betty recalls, “There were other nursing programs in Salt Lake: LDS hospital, St. Mark's Hospital, St. Mary's Wasatch Academy, (Catholic), which offered a 4-year college level degree. I chose SLGH upon the advice of our family doctor, Calderwood, because it was the only one that offered experience beyond the usual medical, surgical, obstetrical, pediatric care: Emergency, Communicable disease, Out-patient, which included Public Health and School Nurse experience, Tuberculosis patient care, rehabilitation for long term, chronically ill patients.” 13 The Nursing Home was not a nursing home (i.e., patient-care facility) but a boarding school for nurse education. Betty also refers to it as the Nurses’ Home. “I moved into the three story, light brick, Nurses' Home on 21st South just above the hospital on State Street. . .. We were each 8 EC: And you couldn’t get married, you said. BE: Right. EC: And did you mind that? BE: I didn’t, but there was quite a few that quit just to get married. EC: Oh really? Tell me, when you were growing up did religion play an important part in your life? BE: Uh, no, not . . . My grandparents were original pioneers. They’re called “historic pioneers,” and my father was baptized. (He was born in Provo. The family had moved down to Provo from Salt Lake, but later they moved back.) And he wasn’t too religious. He smoked a lot for one thing, and my mother as a young person was Presbyterian. She came out [to Utah from Missouri 14], and when they married she never attended any religion, but she was a spiritual person. She taught us how to pray. But it was my friends that were religious. They talked about the Book of Mormon, about the Indian people, and my mother two generations back has Indian blood, and that intrigued me. I wanted to know more about them. EC: Yeah, that’s really interesting. BE: And when I was in high school, [Miriam Claussen], the secretary to the principal, Mr. Hatch? No, what was his name? Ah, things I knew two years ago I don’t know today. (laughs) EC: The nonessentials. in a room with another student in our class. The entrance opened into a large carpeted living room with couches, overstuffed and armchairs. In one corner was a desk for the House Mother to check students in and out, accept visitors.” Besides bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, laundry, the basement level “contained 6 hospital beds, bedside stands, over-the-bed tables on rollers. It was here we learned to bathe patients properly and do the variety of procedures nurses were expected to do.” “Life Journey,” ibid. p. 38. 14 Mary Eliza (called “Lida”) West was born in Hannibal, Missouri, 17 March 1896. At age two her father, a printer by trade, moved the family to nearby St. Louis. At age nine, her parents with the three youngest of their six children moved to Pueblo, Colorado, hoping the climate would help cure her mother (Minnie) and older sister (Nellie) of tuberculosis. After first her sister and then her mother Minnie died of TB only months after moving to Pueblo, various family members, including her older brother “Bud” (William Powell West), a cousin and her husband, and her older sister Ada and husband Jim moved to Pueblo in turns to help keep the family together. Then Mary was sent to live for a couple of years with her sister Ada and family, who had returned to Missouri. When Ada contracted TB, Mary’s father, who had moved to Salt Lake, had Mary rejoin him, his mother (Grandma West), and her younger brother Harold there in Utah. She married John Forrest Barney 15 November 1916 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Mary Eliza West Barney Conrad, “Autobiography,” familysearch.org 9 BE: Anyway, I worked in the office because she knew my mother was a widow and there were expenses and clothes that she knew my mother couldn’t afford, so I worked in the office.15 So that helped me. EC: That’s nice. BE: What was the question again? EC: It was: Was your family very religious growing up? BE: Well, this secretary was a teacher [at church] and I lived right close to Wilford Ward and she did too. She was a teacher of the young people, and she’s the one that got me interested more in religion. But I need to go back because my grandparents kept after my dad to “Let them go to Sunday School,” me and my sister. He says, “Not until they’re a little older.” “Let them at least go to Sunday School!” So finally my dad let me and my sister go to Sunday School. And then they had Primary 16 on Tuesdays and my friend says, “Well, come and go to it.” And I said to my mother, “Do I dare go? Will my dad let me go on Tuesday?” And she said, “Well, just go.” (laughter) And so I had friends that were LDS. EC: So it was a social thing. BE: Uh-huh. But we didn’t have a Bible; I didn’t have a Book of Mormon. So that was the beginning and going to that Sunday school I learned for the first time about Joseph Smith and some of the religious things. I had a pretty eighteen-year-old teacher that was getting married. She was so sweet, and I loved the stories. I’ve always loved stories. So anyway, I kept going. But I didn’t really go into much until this Miriam Claussen, who was the secretary, she and another 15 “The summer after I graduated from the 9th grade I worked in the office of Principal Hatch, invited by Miriam Claussen, my Church Mutual Teacher, since she was the secretary to Principal Hatch. She knew that my mother was a widow, that I would have a hard time paying for school supplies and clothes, and she was being very gracious. I worked the summer filing cards with records kept in tall, metal file cabinets.” “Life Journey,” ibid. pp. 31-32. 16 Primary is the LDS Church’s program of gospel instruction, singing, and activities for children ages 18 months through 11 years. Until 1980 it was held on weekdays rather than Sunday. 10 lady taught us in what was called MIA 17 at the time. And then I had close friends that were all LDS too. EC: So you went with your friends and were involved that way. So, let me ask you, you said you worked when you were in high school, that you worked in the office. So, you had odd jobs to kind of help support your mom? BE: Well, it had to do with keeping records and files. Right next to the office was the bookstore, so I helped sell books and exchange books and kept records of the students; they had little cards that you’d mark when they had this and that and the other. And I had to file other records that Miriam didn’t have the time to do. And then every day before school closed at 3:30 I had to go around to all the rooms and collect the slips from the teachers who had identified those that didn’t show up that day, and that’s how my husband and I met. Probably the last day of high school they had a dance on what they called “Dingy Day” where you wore funny clothes, and he had noticed me each day that I had come to collect [the attendance slips] and said he’d be interested in a date [to the dance]. 18 EC: Oh cute! So then you go to nursing school and you’d met your husband. Did you date your husband while you were in nursing school? BE: Yes, when I could. You had to sign in and you had to sign out, and you had to get permission, and … EC: So even though you lived on your own, it wasn’t very free. BE: No, no, you’re really under the control of the house mother. You had to check in and out. You could only have visitors at a certain time. You had to apply to get a pass to go out. EC: Oh my goodness. BE: And so you weren’t free just to come and go, although we were the first, no the second class, to work an eight-hour day. Before that, nurses always worked twelve-hour days! But when I was there we were the second class to work an eight-hour day. But we still had to go to all of the 17 The youth program for young women of the LDS Church was nicknamed Mutual or MIA (short for Young Women Mutual Improvement Association) until it was renamed simply Young Women in 1974. 18 “The last dance of my Junior year was called a ‘Dingy Dance’ because the clothes were very informal, socks not mates, pants and shirts not match, maybe clothes one wears around the house or to work in. The funnier the better.” Nephi invited her to go to that dance with him. “Life Journey,” ibid., p. 34. 11 classes and still work our time. So we were up early, and we had to be in bed before ten. And they monitored whether we were in bed or not. (laughs) EC: Were you happy in nursing school? BE: Oh yes, I loved it. Plus there was a new part and an old part [of the Nurse’s Home] and we were in the new part. And I liked my roommate [Glenna Woodbury]. She is still alive; she’s about four months older than I am. (She’s got Alzheimer’s so we haven’t . . . ) EC: And how did you pay for nursing school? BE: We were paid $12 a month. They took five dollars and kept it. We were under the Commission: they had three Commissioners; they were in charge of the hospital and they were the ones that always chose the physician in charge. 19 So I lived on $7 a month to buy clothes and anything else other than the initial expenses. There were initial charges when you went in to buy your own uniform and own syringe and own bandage scissors and things like that. 20 . EC: So it wasn’t like an ongoing tuition you had to pay. BE: No, just the original. I can’t remember what the original was. It wasn’t a lot, but my mother was a widow and of course there was a lot she couldn’t pay for. EC: Right! That’s why I wondered how you managed that. So tell me, after nursing school, you graduate, did you get to be a stewardess? What did you do after nursing school? BE: Well, before I graduated, there was a war on. And as far as the airlines went, they didn’t have nurses anymore because the nurses went into the armed services, and so they decided they would have people that were not nurses [as stewards]—and that’s where a lot of the men that couldn’t go to war started. Anyway, so anyway, I was a senior nursing student, but I was put in 19 “The Hospital administrators were the 3 County Commissioners, who appointed a Hospital Administrator, Dr. Curtis. He and his family lived in a red-brick house on State Street, just north of the hospital.” “Life Journey,” ibid., p. 40. 20 “I purchased from the hospital store 2 cotton striped blue and white dresses, three white bibs and aprons, 3 pair white hose, mouth thermometer, bandage scissors. My mother had given me a wind-up watch (only kind available) with a second hand. I purchased white oxford shoes at a local shoestore. I bought a stiffly starched cotton cap, the shape unique to SLGH school of nursing. (Each nursing school had its own style nursing cap.) This would not be worn until after the first six week, the days of Probation before being fully accepted into the program.” “Life Journey,” ibid, p. 38. 12 charge of what they called the Gray Ladies. 21 (I think they’re Pink Ladies now.) The Gray Ladies were ones that came to the rescue to help the nurses because there were so few nurses left. The Gray Ladies would take temperatures, fill the water pitchers, talk to the patients, write letters if they needed it, and we’d get blankets and kind of help the nurses. And, see, they didn’t have the second-level nurses … EC: Like nursing assistants? BE: They didn’t have any of those at that time; the Gray Ladies came in. (They wore gray uniforms.) And I was in charge of teaching them, training them about all this that went on. Then, after I graduated and I married, I was hired by the Salt Lake General Hospital. EC: You married your high school boyfriend? BE: Yes, I married in 1940 and we lived in an apartment, and I was hired by the Salt Lake General Hospital. I worked nights in emergency and, as I told you, sometimes I was the telephone operator for lunch when she had a break22. (laughs) So I learned to run the telephone system 23. EC: Oh my goodness. What did your husband do for a living? BE: He was still going to college 24. He was an accountant; he graduated from University of Utah in business, and I worked nights. Let’s see, I got $30 a month; working nights I got $35. That 21 The Gray Ladies were American Red Cross volunteers who worked in American hospitals, other health-care facilities, and private homes, notably during World War II. They provided friendly, personal, non-medical services to sick, injured or disabled patients. They wrote letters, read, tutored and shopped for patients, and served as guides to visitors and as hostesses in hospital recreation rooms and at information desks. Gray Ladies also provided hospitality services in Red Cross Blood Centers and joined forces with other Red Cross workers in caring for disaster victims. Susan Watson (November 18, 2013). "The Gray Lady Service". American Red Cross. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_Ladies (accessed 23 August 2019) 22 Betty laughs because her night nurse shift was from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and the so-called “lunch break” for the telephone operator was at 2 o’clock in the morning. 23 In the early days of telephone technology, through roughly the 1960s and the advent of dial-up phones and automatic exchanges, companies used manual telephone switchboards, and switchboard operators connected calls. A caller picked up the phone and spoke to an operator at a Central Office who asked what number the caller wanted to call (“Number please?”) and the switchboard operator then inserted a pair of phone plugs into the appropriate jacks in order to complete the call. 24 Betty recalls, “Nephi continued to attend the University of Utah business school while doing various jobs on the side to pay for his education. We first lived in an apartment on 5th East, then in an apartment next to Nephi’s home on Beryl Ave. When we were expecting our first child we lived with Nephi’s 13 was my salary. People in the laundry room and the equipment room, they made more money than the nurses. EC: What?! How is that fair? BE: Because they have to have three shifts of nurses and only one of the other—that was what they told me. (laughs) EC: That’s terrible. BE: But I really had good learning experiences. EC: And how long did you work there, and did you put your husband through school then? Did he work while you were doing that or did you put him through school? BE: Uh, yeah, in a way. We lived in apartments and then by the time he graduated, I had a son 25, born in 1942, and that’s when my husband graduated. So I had a baby six months old when he graduated, and we bought a little house, which now has been torn down, about where the Wasatch Lawn cemetery is. 26 (It was Luck Lane; still is Luck Lane.) In a little house. I worked. I had friends that worked too, and they’d pick me up. My husband would go to school. EC: And after you had the baby you still worked? BE: Yes. One of my nurse’s friends would take care of my baby while I worked. EC: That’s nice. Did you want to go back to work? BE: No! It was due to the war! There were no nurses and they needed the help. My husband had part-time work: he worked for the University of Utah. So he had an income but that was small. We didn’t have a lot of money, and I really would rather have stayed home but they were desperate. They even provided for a nursery so that some of us could come to work and bring our children in the nursery. I was in charge of getting the food that the kids had to have; they were different ages. But the hospital paid for that nursery. EC: Did you bring your son to the nursery sometimes? parents until Nephi graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in accounting.” “LIFE SKETCH OF BETTY BARNEY EVENSON,” (March 2016), p. 2. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/KWZH-725 (accessed 9/11/2019) 25 Lynn Barney Evenson was born January 11, 1942. 26 “Our first house was a small, one-bedroom frame house at 1405 Luck Lane, off of Highland Drive about a block south of 33rd South across from the Wasatch Lawn Cemetery.” “Life Sketch,” ibid. 14 BE: Oh, I had to, yes. But not till he was a little older because I had two friends who were having babies and they said they’d take care of my baby with theirs. And then a little later I took care of toddlers when they needed me to. So I made really nice friends. EC: That’s so nice. BE: And so eventually my husband graduated27 and we lived in Salt Lake until I think it was about 1952 or ’53, we moved to Pocatello, lived there about twenty years or so and then moved to St. George and lived there about twenty years. That’s where my husband died—when we were in St. George. And I liked Pocatello, Idaho. EC: What did you move to Pocatello for? BE: My husband’s work. EC: Did you continue to do nursing up there? BE: Well yes, that’s where I started toward getting a bachelor’s degree in nursing. EC: So did your nursing school not count as your bachelor’s degree in nursing? I thought it would have. BE: No. The only place you could get a bachelor’s degree [in Salt Lake] was at Catholic school28 (I can’t even think of the name) up on the hill. They had a four-year program, but all the rest of them were just two-year programs. And so I had an RN degree. EC: So how old were you when you went back to get your bachelor’s degree? BE: I graduated [in 1940], let’s see, when I was twenty-one, so it was probably 1953. 29 27 “Nephi graduated from Granite High School in 1936 and the U of U School of Business with honors in 1942. He was employed as auditor of the Utah Board of Education until drafted into the U.S. Army, and released in December 1945. After leaving an accounting practice he formed, he became Treasurer at an insurance company in Salt Lake City. In 1953 he and his family moved to Pocatello, Idaho, where he worked as controller with the Idaho Farm Bureau Insurance Company. After holding various positions there, he retired in 1980 as Senior Vice President.” His obituary is posted on familysearch.org (KWZH725). 28 St. Mary’s Wasatch Academy 29 “I attended Idaho State College when our children were in school. I worked at the local hospitals, Bannock or St. Anthony, to earn the money for the college classes. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology, 1952, and Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing, 1953. I then was a student at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA, earning a Master’s Degree in Nursing in 1954.” “Life Sketch,” ibid., p. 3. 15 EC: How old were your kids then? BE: Well, when we moved to Pocatello, my daughter had just turned six so she was in the first grade. 30 So they were all in school. And we rented a house and then traded a house finally with the one in Salt Lake, and that’s when I started working—when the kids were in school. And I’d be in school. EC: That’s makes it easier, when they’re occupied during the day. BE: Well, I wouldn’t have gone otherwise. EC: So during the years when they were little, did you still work as a nurse sometimes or did you have to put that on hold for a while? BE: Well, after my husband graduated in 1942, I’ve stayed home. EC: You did get to stay home. BE: Well, I had two more children. My husband had to go off to army, but he came back. My husband’s mother was a gold star mother: she had five sons, all in the army at once—and they’re all color blind!31 EC: Oh my gosh! And they all came home I hope? BE: Yup, they did. EC: Oh good. BE: Yeah! So I didn’t work but I did community service: I’d help with taking blood pressures, and they had pre-school exams before you go to school. I did those kinds of things. EC: That’s nice you volunteered for those, using your nursing skills. BE: So when I went up to Idaho and all my kids were in school, that’s when I went back and got my bachelor’s32, and my friend and I were the only ones that graduated. They had to make the bachelor’s degree for us because they didn’t ever have one, and so we were the first ones. 30 Jimmie Forrest Evenson, born August 6, 1945, in Salt Lake City; Barbara Jeanne Evenson, February 14, 1948, in Salt Lake City. 31 Certain physical conditions, such as having asthma or being color blind, usually disqualify a person for military service. 16 EC: Oh my, and was it the University of Idaho? Or what school was it? BE: It was called the Idaho State College at that time but later it became a university, and so that I could teach there (while my kids were in college) I went to the University of Washington in Seattle and got a master’s degree in nursing. (That is as high as you can get. If you want to get a doctorate, you had to get it in some other field.) So I came back and worked at Idaho State and taught for twelve years. I retired when I was about seventy-nine and then I spent a semester at Ricks College as chairman of their two-year nursing program. 33 (Lucy Legg 34 went on sabbatical so I took her place for a semester.) And then we moved to St. George. EC: How nice. BE: And in St. George I wasn’t too active other than again in community things. EC: And did you go to St. George just for your retirement, you and your husband’s retirement? BE: Yes because he could go skiing and play tennis and golf all the same day! EC: All the same day. (laughs) Did you like to do those kinds of things as well? BE: Oh I loved golf, and belonged to the swimming club. (I came here because they had swimming.) I’ve been active, and when I was in Pocatello, I taught community classes on mother and baby care through the Red Cross. They would hold them in some room in a hospital. I also taught a class through social services for unwed mother for a couple of years. They were really located elsewhere in Idaho, but they put a satellite in Pocatello. EC: When you were teaching classes, were you designing the curriculum? 32 “Education, Employment when in Pocatello. I attended Idaho State College when our children were in school. I worked at the local hospitals, Bannock or St. Anthony, to earn the money for the college classes. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology, 1952, and Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing, 1953. I then was a student at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA, earning a Master’s Degree in Nursing in 1954.” “Life Sketch,” ibid., p. 3. 33 After earning her master’s degree in nursing in 1954 from the University of Washington in Seattle, Betty was employed at Idaho State University in the Department of Nursing until she retired after twelve years. She then served one semester at Ricks College in Rexburg (later BYU-Idaho) as temporary chairman of the two-year nursing program. 34 “Lucy Legg: Learning and Teaching the Healer’s Art” by Mary Alice Campbell, Ensign (June, 1987), offers a brief portrait of another nurse educator, chairman of the nursing program at Ricks College, Idaho, and a contemporary of Betty’s. . 17 BE: Well, when you enter the Red Cross, they have it pretty well outlined, but you adjust it to the people. It was so interesting to me because when I first went the unwed mothers were the young kids in high school or thereafter, but pretty soon I got women in their twenties who wanted a baby and they’d keep their babies. We’d give them the option for adoption and we had ways of getting them informed about that, and they’d have to make decisions. But I think that was interesting, that there are so many women unmarried but they wanted a baby. The last years I was teaching, we were under a federal grant taking what we called satellite programs, the nursing programs, out to the community to get nurses to get bachelor’s degrees. And so I would fly a lot and drive a lot, and that was a nice experience. I quit because one of the things that they did was have lawyers have students sign papers for student benefits, and one of the things is that then you couldn’t get rid of students. EC: Couldn’t get rid of them in what way? BE: This was the beginning of the drugs, and if students were on drugs, I didn’t want them in the nursery with children and babies. And there were a lot of male students who were going into anesthesiology and other things, and so the cost of my protective insurance kept going up and up and up, but not my salary because we didn’t make much money. But we couldn’t keep a student out even if you knew they were on drugs. They had their student . . . and I can’t think of the word right now, but anyway the students were protected. And besides that, then we had a visiting professor who was really an alcoholic and there was no way we could get rid of him. We had built a new nursing facility with all the new tech and stuff, and he wanted to take the building over for himself. Also we had really a wonderful curriculum and I belonged to a group that met periodically different places advancing nursing and I was asked to come back to Pennsylvania or some place, and he wouldn’t let me go—even though they paid for it; it wouldn’t have cost him anything! It was because he didn’t think we worked long enough hours because he’d come over and nobody would be there. We worked twelve hours and split shifts, and did all kinds of things. And I just couldn’t stand him anymore. He refused to let me go. It wouldn’t cost a thing, but no sir. There’s politics that go on at universities that you can’t control, so I decided I’m not going to live under those conditions because stress is a bad thing to have all the time. 18 EC: It is. Let me ask you: You were working during the time of the civil rights movement and the Equal Rights Amendment, which was a big deal on campuses. Was that something that registered? BE: It wasn’t. When you are in a profession like nursing, it’s a little separate from the rest of the things. EC: So that didn’t affect where you worked? BE: No, but like I said, the students wanted to have their rights, and there’s always tenure for faculty. So there’s always some problems that universities have that they’re working on. (laughs) But other than that, there were wonderful people I worked with. We had outstanding people and most of the students in nursing were really intent. They’re focused, you know. They’re really desiring to get graduated and out in the world, and so they are more intense students than some of the others. And so that’s enjoyable. EC: So when you moved to St. George, you shifted from professional work to mostly community work, volunteer, and so did you do volunteer clinics? What did that look like? What did your life in St. George look like? Did your children move with you, or were they all grown up by then? BE: They were pretty well grown up. Let’s see, my daughter was still . . . she graduated from BYU. They all three went on missions, and they all graduated from different colleges. EC: Oh, so let me back up a little bit. So religion must have been a bigger deal in your and your husband’s life. BE: Yes, we were married in the Salt Lake temple. EC: So your husband was pretty religious then? BE: Yes. EC: So you guys were married in the LDS temple, so religion played a big part in your life. BE: Right. Our lives were taken up: when you’re in a ward, you’re busy. EC: Yeah, they give you a bunch of jobs! BE: And the kids were active too, you know. 19 EC: What kinds of jobs did you have? It’s hard to have a professional job and be an LDS woman. They give you a lot of work to do! BE: Right. Professionally, it was just volunteer where I was needed. (Phone ringing. Interview interrupted briefly.) Sorry, my voice is just so gravelly today. EC: No, it’s your just fine; this is a really good little recorder. Okay, so we were talking about you and your husband. Your husband’s name is? BE: Nephi. EC: Oh, and that’s a very Mormon name so I could have guessed he was a religious guy! BE: When he went into the service we had to have his birth certificate, and on that it said his name was Glenn. So we had to go through all of the stuff to get it changed, and we asked his dad, “How come?” and he said, “I don’t know. It’s just when I held that baby, it just seemed like Glenn wasn’t his name!” (laughter) EC: He didn’t look like a Glenn! That’s adorable! Okay, so you were active LDS and your kids all went on missions. So, when you go to St. George, did the church play a big part of your life? BE: Yes. I’ve done everything. EC: Even the hard, big callings? Was it hard to balance that with your being a mom and working full time? How did you do all those things at the same time? BE: A day at a time. I was Relief Society president in Pocatello. I was Relief Society president and I worked. I’ve been Relief Society homemaker instructor. (They had other programs then.) I’ve been everything two or three times except the president. I’ve only been that once, but I’ve been a counselor several times and it’s taken up a lot of my time. 35 EC: It’s a lot of work, especially if you’re working and raising a family. BE: When we moved to St. George, I was secretary in Relief Society there. 35 “Church Callings in Pocatello: Relief Society Visiting Teacher; teacher of Family History, called Genealogy; Relief Society President; Relief Society 2nd Counselor— Education; Relief Society Counselor—Homemaking, twice; Relief Society teacher about Family; RS committee for refreshments; RS in charge of Nursery held during RS lessons, activities; Gospel Doctrine teacher; Our home for weekly meetings of the group on 3 Temple Lessons; MIA teacher for Bluebirds for young girls; Cub Scouts; 8 year-old boys class in Sunday School. We were PTA Presidents at Pocatello High School for one year.” “Life Sketch,” ibid., pp.2-3. 20 EC: Did you ever feel like you could say “no” to a calling? Did you ever feel like you wanted to, or did you always feel like you had to say “yes”? BE: Well, one time when my husband and I were asked to be Scout leaders. (laughs) We were older; we were in St. George. My husband was a Scout all his life and good one, and we just decided we couldn’t do that. That’s the only time that we’ve said no! EC: Good for you. That’s totally fair! BE: Yes. (laughs) But I’ve taught in Primary, Sunday school, adults, and special things, and Gospel Doctrine, so I’ve … EC: So it’s been a big part of your life. BE: Especially after my husband retired—well, especially after I resigned. I had more time. EC: You retired from work. BE: Yes, after I’d worked there twelve years. But I always got good grades, usually graduated first in my nursing classes, so I’ve been blessed. EC: And how do you feel like your life has been different from your mother’s life? BE: Well, she was a stay-at-home mother, but she had to go to work. After a few years the neighbor next to us opened a Tea Room and my mother was the waitress for a while. This woman was from Holland, the Netherlands. They served chicken and steak and pies and things, but she wasn’t a very good cook so eventually my mother became cook. So “Ginny’s Tea Room” on Highland Drive and 30th South was pretty famous for a while. EC: Jeannie’s Tea Room. BE: She had a few children, and she waited until her children were grown and gone. So they had a big chicken farm in back and decided that they’d open and make a tea room. But my mother was a fabulous cook, and she made all the pies and desserts and cooked the chicken. EC: Do you feel like you learned domestic skills from your mom? Did she teach you how to cook and do those things? BE: Well, she didn’t have a lot of time, but see, we raised our own fruits and vegetables. We had to learn to do that. In junior high we spent half a year in cooking, half a year in sewing—and 21 they don’t have that anymore. They don’t have Civics 36, which is the worst one! (chuckle) I was in high school mostly when my mother was working, so she didn’t have time to really teach us other than the fact that we all liked homemade things. Good cooking! She made the most fabulous chili sauce I’ve ever tasted. She learned to make mustard pickles, which you can’t even buy anymore. EC: Oh yes, my grandmother loved mustard pickles! BE: And she made squash pies, instead of pumpkin pies; we raised squash but not pumpkins. And she made lemon pies. My sister and I said, “Lemon pie cures anything!” (laughs) And my sister loves to cook too, and my mother’s brother was a cook, a professional cook. He lived in Salt Lake for short time but mostly in California. And so having good, fresh homemade food has always been important, and I still try to do that. I still do some cooking. Most the time, though, we go out and then I save it and have it for two or three days because at ninety-eight you don’t eat much! EC: Really? BE: You don’t get as hungry. Your metabolism slows, and although I do exercises every day, I don’t go swimming like I used to when I first moved here. EC: You said they have a pool here and that’s part of the reason you came here37? BE: Yes, I used to swim every day. EC: And did you move back up here after your husband passed away? BE: Yes, another year after. EC: And how long ago was that? BE: Thirteen years. EC: Oh, that’s a long time. 36 According to Education Week (October 23, 2018), most states currently require American history classes, which generally include a unit on civics (the processes of government, the responsibilities of citizenship, etc.), but not a separate civics class. https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/datamost-states-require-history-but-not.html 37 Canyon Road Towers Condominium, 123 East 2nd Avenue, Salt Lake City 22 BE: My daughter [Barbara] already lived here. I could have gone to Boise with my one son. The other one lived in Oklahoma then; he’s in Indianapolis now. They’d have welcomed me but at that time there were cousins and my brother and they all lived in this area and so I decided to stay here. EC: And you’re a Salt Lake girl! You were born here. This is your home. BE: Yes, it’s home. My brother was a physician and lived out in West Valley. He’s a wonderful man, and he had a big family. His wife died just two or three years ago and he has children all around. EC: That’s nice. How many grandchildren do you have? BE: I have fourteen. EC: Oh wow, three children and fourteen grandchildren. BE: Fourteen great-grandchildren. EC: Fourteen great-grandchildren! BE: And one great-great grandchild. EC: Whoa, how exciting! BE: That’s the five generations. (Indicating a picture) EC: Oh, I was looking at that picture while you were on the phone. Handsome men. BE: And that little Sophie! EC: Oh, she’s darling. BE: She is. They live up in Rexburg. EC: Well, it seems like you had a good, good life. BE: I’ve been blessed. EC: Yes, and this is a great place you’ve got. That’s quite a view. BE: It isn’t everybody who has a horizon pine view! (laughs) EC: Well I’ll say! Thank you so much for letting me come and talk to you. 23 24