Dolores (Dee) Franzen Rowland, interviewed for the Aileen H. Clyde 20th Century Women's Legacy Archive, 2014

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.

Dolores (Dee) Franzen Rowland Interviewed by Marie Cornwall for the th Aileen H. Clyde 20 Century Women’s Legacy Archive Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library University of Utah June 4, 2014 Dolores (Dee) Franzen Rowland Interviewed by Marie Cornwall and Louise Degn for the Aileen H. Clyde 20th Century Women's Legacy Archive Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library University of Utah Born: August 27, 1940, St. Lucas, Fayette, Iowa Parents: Robert Franzen & Elsie Schott Franzen Husband: John M. Rowland Children: Aubrey Anne Rowland Graham [Tim] Amy Lynne Rowland [Brian Hutchinson] Angela Dee Rowland [Rob Rice] Allison Marie Rowland Amber Lee Rowland [Hawk Mendenhall] 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. Marie Cornwall conducted this interview with Louise Degn. Transcription by Elizabeth Condie Brough and editing by Dlora Hall Dalton and Dawn Hall Anderson. Footnotes were added by the editors and Marie Cornwall and approved by the interviewee. Elisha Buhler Condie prepared the final manuscript. The focus of the interview project was three-fold: (1) to record the personal histories of 20th century 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 Marie Cornwall (MC): We are here with Dee Rowland on June 4, 2014. Dee, will you begin by telling us your full name? Dee Rowland (DR): I am Dolores Rowland and my middle initial is “F” for my maiden name. Louise Degn (LD): What was your maiden name? DR: Franzen. I was born in St. Lucas, Iowa, on August 27th of 1940, so I’m presently almost 74 years old. St. Lucas, Iowa, is a tiny town just below the Minnesota border, and I don’t remember ever living there—we moved. My dad was . . . well, he wasn’t a farmer at that time, but after we moved he became one and he had a sawmill. My parents were married in 1929. As they said, they were married in the middle of the Depression, and they never got out of it. So my family rented farms; my father never owned his own farm. We lived in northeast Iowa on a variety of farms, so I went to a variety of grade schools. I did stay in the same high school; we stayed put those years. MC: I’d like you to remember when you were ten years old, which would be your fourth or fifth year in grade school. Tell me about your life at age ten. What comes to mind? DR: Well, as I said, we were living on a farm and so it was a very idyllic life. I was one of seven children, and I was known as a bookworm. I was very skinny so when I think about it, that label was probably bullying from other kids. You know, now it’s popular to be skinny, but in those days it was not good. But it just seemed natural at that time: yeah, I was called a bookworm and I was skinny. MC: One of seven children, so where were you out of seven? DR: I was fifth. Our seven children were spread out over 20 years; my oldest sister is exactly 10 years older than me. By the time I was born she had married and had children, so at age ten I had one niece. Through the years those nieces and nephews were my playthings; I got to take care of them, in addition to my little sister who was eight years younger. I’ve always liked babies. I was sort of their mother and thought it was a great privilege to take care of them. (laughs) MC: And your married sister was living close? DR: Close enough that we saw them fairly often. 3 MC: Tell me more about this: are you saying you were a bookworm maybe because you were bullied? DR: No, and I shouldn’t have . . . I don’t even want to use that word. I was just known as a bookworm. So I guess I read every chance I got because I had that nickname, both at school and at home. MC: Do you remember what you were reading? DR: Well, Nancy Drew, of course! Boy, I don’t know what age I was but I remember reading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier at an early age. I read everything I could get my hands on. MC: What were your friendships like? Living on a farm, are you a little isolated from friends because the farms are so far apart? DR: They weren’t so far away; this is in Iowa, so you can see the next farm. At age ten, I probably… Oh, I know! I remember, I was bitten by the neighbor’s dog. We lived on a long lane, and I could walk up and play at their house until one day their dog bit me quite severely. (laughs) Just thinking about the exact age is difficult, but I always had one good girlfriend from school. MC: I assume you were being raised in a good Catholic family? DR: Yes. MC: Will you say something about that? DR: Yes, a very good Catholic family. During Lent we said the rosary. We knelt down after supper, as we called it in Iowa. (You had dinner at noon and you had supper in the evening.) My dad would always kneel, as tired as he was and stiff as he was from farm work; we would kneel down and say the rosary every night during Lent. That was the goal. And then we'd go to Mass every Sunday. (At that time you could go to Mass only on Sunday; you didn’t have the Saturday night option.) So that was a big part of our life. MC: Were most of the neighbors around also Catholic? RD: No, it was a very good mix. In fact, there were Amish in our neighborhood when we lived in Independence, Iowa. There’s a whole Amish community there. You might not know 4 that. 1 Because they didn’t drive, they often called on us for rides. I played with those kids at school, and it was a good mixture. But growing up, you don’t think anything about it. That’s just what’s there. When I look back, though, it was a lovely mixture of religions. I went to a Catholic school only for a very short time, depending on where we lived, because transportation was always an issue. I know my dad worked hard to get us to Catholic school when we could. But I didn’t go to a Catholic high school. In fact, from sixth grade on, I was in the public school system, and for a couple of years before that—depending again on where we lived. MC: How often did you move? RD: I think, when I was small, every two or three years, but then we stayed on the same farm all through high school. MC: Were your parents moving for a better opportunity, better farms? RD: I think that it was the rent cycle: there would be changes in ownership or something. Imagine moving a farm! I mean, I remember it, but I don’t know how they managed! The last time they moved a whole farm: imagine moving animals, moving farm equipment. (laughs) And we make a big fuss about just moving a household! MC: And did you move very far? DR: No, the moves would often be to the next town, and it would be all in northeast Iowa, probably within a 70-mile radius, something like that. MC: Let’s talk about junior high and high school then. DR: That last move was to a farm just outside Independence, Iowa, where I went to junior high. This was the middle of 7th grade and we went to a country school. I had been in a Catholic school in a community that was about 60 miles away, in Clermont, Iowa. Anyway, then we went to the country school and there were three people in my class. The teacher drove, picked up my little brother and me in our driveway and other kids on her way to school. Imagine that! Her name was Mabel Ronan. (Isn’t that funny, what you remember?) Imagine having to deal with kids all day, then drive them to and from school, but that’s just the way it was. This is where I had the most contact with the Amish kids because the Amish residents have been in Iowa for over 160 years. Large Amish communities are found near Kalona, Bloomfield, and in northeast Buchanan County just west of Hazleton. The Amish community in Buchanan County, home to approximately 800 of the state's 7,000 Amish residents, is recognized as the most conservative Old Order settlement in Iowa. 1 5 country school was right there with the Amish kids. I didn’t realize I was getting a great education. It was a one-room school with three kids in the graduating class, and then we had to take the county test—and I got the highest grade in the county! So that was like, whoa! That was the first acknowledgment that … I suppose because my parents were of German heritage, they weren’t the kind of nowadays parents where—I don’t know if you grew up like that—where you were ever told that you were smart or wonderful or anything. I felt love because they took great care of us, but they didn't say, “I love you,” six times a day. I don’t know how much of that was German heritage or… MC: Or the times. DR: I just remember being shocked: Wow, I got the best grade in Buchanan County! This included all the schools, not just the country schools. Then I remember my first pair of nylons with seams: I remember having to walk up in the big auditorium, worrying about my crooked seams on my skinny legs! You have a way of bringing out all this stuff. (laughs) MC: This is great, though! DR: I remember seams with nylons, and of course when your legs are sticks anyway, there’s no way [to keep the seams straight]. But I remember that was a worry of mine. MC: You were also tall, I assume, besides being skinny, right? DR: Yes, I was a bean pole. The country school had outdoor toilets: one for the girls; one for the boys. We played workup softball 2, and it was just great fun. In between lessons the teacher had us do workbooks. I think that’s why, when I went on to college, I always did better just reading the material than attending lectures. During lectures I would take notes just to keep awake. I always do better with the written word than the spoken word. I wonder how much of that was innate, or was it that we had workbooks in the country schools, and it was just so much fun to fill in all the blanks. MC: You liked doing that? DR: Yes, that worked for me, I guess. (laughs) 2 Scrub baseball (also called workup—because the fielders work their way up to bat) is a way of playing baseball with no teams when there aren’t enough players available. No score is kept, as the idea is "each against all" for practice. Players rotate through different positions on the field as well as taking turns at bat. 6 MC: Let’s talk about college. Did your parents encourage you to go to college? Was it always part of your thinking? DR: It was always part of my dreams. I was a good student in high school too; I was a graduation speaker and all that. But I was fifth in my family, and I had three older sisters who all married fairly young. By the time I came along, I was saving money for college. I was going to go to the University of Iowa and major in journalism with my best friend Sharon Satterlee. And then my dad signed me up for a secretarial school in Omaha, Nebraska. I remember the guy came to our house in the evening peddling this program saying, “Look how much . . . you can be making this! The government needs workers, and blah, blah, blah.” And my dad signed me up for it. I cried because it wasn’t what I wanted. This wasn’t a real college. It was a three-month summer school in Omaha, a trade school. MC: But how did you know that? How did you know that secretarial school was not best for you? Was someone, or some experience, or something telling you that college was going to be much more exciting and a better fit for you? DR: Well, because I was a good student, and then when my teachers found out they were aghast too. But no one ever mentioned scholarships; I don’t know if it’s because my high school didn’t have counselors? This was 1958 when I graduated. I had worked all through high school as a waitress and car hop and saved money. But my dad said, “Oh, you’re just going to get married anyway.” This is true! “Going to college is a waste!” MC: Besides, the first three daughters had just gotten married. DR: Yes, right. They got married, had children right away, and they weren’t working, so why did you need a college education? So I went to Omaha to the trade school. Then when I finished, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was one of the recruiters and I thought, All right! I can go to Washington, D.C., and get a job and serve in foreign countries, and that’ll be great! And so I did, I did go to Washington and started night school. Oh, once you got your clearance, the CIA job was full-time. I found out later that the CIA recruited in small towns on purpose because they have you take a lie detector test—they did at that time; I’m sure they still do—and they loved innocent girls. I didn’t know this then but the big fear was homosexuality. I didn’t even know what homosexuality was! (laughs) But the CIA was afraid that [if you were homosexual], then you could be blackmailed and you would trade secrets in return for not being exposed. I learned later that that was the big fear. In the meantime, I had met this wonderful man in our church choir who had just come home—he had been in the army in Europe. His mother was the choir director so I knew his whole family, and they said, “Oh, John’s coming home!” 7 MC: And this was when you were in Washington, D.C.? DR: No, no, this was while I was still in Iowa that I met him, and he was seven years older. He’d asked me out because his sister was my best friend from Latin class. I was going to something with her, a variety show, and he invited himself along. Then he asked me for a date the next night and I said, “No, I have to babysit.” Anyway, he went back to wherever he was stationed, out of state. The next thing I heard was that he had TB [tuberculosis] and wasn’t expected to live, and I felt so bad I hadn’t said yes! He had contracted TB in the barracks in Germany in Munich. (He didn’t come down with it until after he was back home.) We started writing while he was in the hospital at Fitzsimons [Army Medical Center 3] in Colorado. We corresponded all through my senior year. Then [after the summer in Omaha] I went off to Washington and we still corresponded. I remember when we had a long distance phone bill of $35, which was [almost a week’s wages]. 4 (laughs) I relented and we got married after I had been in Washington for only a year and a half or so. He was teaching at that time; he got a job in Omaha, so we lived in Omaha for two or three years. We got married in our hometown of Independence and moved to Omaha. I attended the University of Omaha there and then got a job there also. Our first child was born nine months and 29 days after our marriage—like a good Catholic girl! I was working at the University of Omaha, and I was so happy about being pregnant and having a baby that I announced it to my office mates. What I didn't know was that they had a policy that you cannot work—I mean, when I think about it!—you cannot work as a pregnant woman. I could’ve gotten by because it wouldn’t have been obvious I was pregnant, but I had to resign—because I was pregnant. MC: What kind of work were you doing? DR: Secretarial, for the University of Omaha in their testing center. I was typing and working with mimeographs. Mimeograph machines! 5 I mean, this is ancient history, you know? MC: And you couldn’t be pregnant and run a mimeograph machine? 3 Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Aurora, Colorado which operated from 1981 to 1999 was a prime location for treating TB. 4 $35 in 1959 would be equivalent to $280 in 2014. For year-round full-time women workers, incomes averaged $3,200 a year in 1959 (around $62 a week). 5 The stencil duplicator or mimeograph machine was a low-cost duplicating machine that worked by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper, not to be confused with the spirit duplicator process or ditto masters. 8 DR: No, I think it was an issue of the students seeing a pregnant woman. I don’t know, but that was the policy at the University of Omaha and I presume other universities. And I wasn’t even a professor; I was just a lowly office staff worker. MC: And so what year was this? DR: That was 1959. She was born April 29th, 1960. So I resigned, and then I worked at a Jewish Synagogue, which was a great experience. It was a temporary job until she was born, and then I stopped working. Then a year later I had Amy! We have five daughters, and no sons. So I did not return to the workforce. I finished my college education, oh, dribbling on in night schools. MC: But your husband was supportive of that, of you going to school? DR: Oh yes. Yes, he was. MC: And it shows how determined you were to get an education. DR: Yes, in Cheyenne I was commuting to Laramie, which is 50 miles over a summit. It was actually a good example for them; when they were little I was doing my homework with them, and most of them now have advanced degrees. So yes, I guess I put that on them: there was no way they weren’t going to school! And now they all work for non-profits and all have wonderful careers. One’s a principal of a school, another does affordable housing, and . . . I don’t know if you want to get into that now? MC: Sure, so they’re all in non-profits? DR: Yes. MC: And what degree did you get? Was it journalism? DR: No, it was English. MC: Now, how did you get to Cheyenne? DR: Union Pacific: John took a job with Union Pacific Railroad because he wasn’t making enough as a teacher—well, or at least he could make more. So we moved to Cheyenne, and 9 then here. We stayed on the Union Pacific line, even though he was in electronics so he was never on the railroad. He built the microwave sites along the Union Pacific line. 6 MC: When did you move to Salt Lake? DR: In June of 1974. So it’s going to be 40 years, in this very house. We have stayed in the same house! It’s hard to believe. MC: What was it like to move to Salt Lake? Did you have all five daughters? DR: Oh yes, we had all five daughters and the oldest two were in eighth grade. Our second child, who was only a year younger than our first, had skipped a grade because being that close in age, you know, when Audrey learned to read, Amy learned to read, even though Amy was in kindergarten and Audrey was in first grade. So she got shifted and put in the same grade. So they were both in eighth grade when we moved here, and our youngest was just starting all-day first grade. This was a new house in a new neighborhood. Our friends said, “Oh, Salt Lake City. Oh, the Mormons! You’ll be miserable.” That was the attitude. But then they’d say, “Oh, well, you guys might like it because you don’t drink and you have a lot of kids.” (laughs) I remember that was a common comment: “Oh you guys might fit in,” or something like that. But no, Salt Lake did not have a good reputation, unfortunately. But we moved in and John was traveling because his territory went all the way to California, so that was hard. This was also when our youngest daughter started school. We bought this house because we have all three levels of school—elementary, junior high, and high school—within walking distance, so that was the great benefit of the neighborhood. But there were empty lots on each side of us. We came in the summer and there young kids in the neighborhood. I remember that the boys came around. Well, we had two junior high girls and three younger girls so these boys of the same age were hanging around a lot. One day they were in the house and they said to me, “You bake bread? I thought only Mormons baked bread!” (laughs) There were just all these preconceptions, you know; we just needed to get to know each other. MC: Were they all Mormon boys? DR: Yes, yes, I think so. There were no houses down there so this was a great playground— well, there were only three houses or so down there—so the neighborhood kids played down there, and we had a good neighborhood thing going. Our two oldest had one year there at 6 The Union Pacific used a system of microwave frequency radio communication towers along the railroad lines for internal communications. 10 the junior high and then they went to Brighton [High School], and they each had a miserable time at Brighton. They did. I joined the League of Women Voters 7 and that saved my life as far as friendships and social connections. I was also taking classes. I decided I was going to be a nurse midwife, and I had had enough general coursework that I would have just needed upper division labs. So, anyway, I came to the U [University of Utah] and enrolled in a chemistry class and an anatomy class. That started in the fall; I was having the empty nest with kids at school and I thought that would work out. But this house wasn’t finished; there were still workmen coming by. For instance, I remember that the front door wouldn’t close! When John was gone, I would brace a chair against it. Then I’d wait for the carpenter; he would say he was going to come and take care of it at such and such a time. So I missed a lab to be there, and that kind of thing went on with the house. It was very frustrating, and I dropped out of both anatomy and chemistry in December. I think I should have prevailed, but I was so used to getting A’s all the time and I was going to get a B! (laughs) So I dropped out of that program. Anyway, I did join the League of Women Voters and continued taking classes at the U, easier classes, after things settled down here at home. MC: Why did you join the League of Women Voters? DR: I must have read about it in the newspaper. I just thought it sounded interesting; I loved public policy. So that really saved my life. (That’s how I met Irene Fisher 8 right away, and she’s been a lifelong friend ever since.) I loved the intellectual stimulation. And the reality 7 The League is a nonpartisan, political organization, organized at local, state, and national levels. Members volunteer for three kinds of service: Voter Service, League Studies, and League Action. The League is best known for their voter service, working with the community and media to encourage citizens to vote and help them get registered, publishing voter guides and websites on candidates, maintaining a government information hot line, and sponsoring public debates and workshops. The League Studies division writes and distributes to members, the media, government agencies, and the public their well-researched, nonpartisan studies of issues. The League Action division reads and discusses their studies to come to consensus on what government action they want to encourage. They monitor government operations and lobby for legislation year round, often collaborating with other groups to promote action on priority issues. 8 Irene Fisher has been a lifelong worker in community service beginning with the League of Women Voters, where she ultimately became president. Notably she has served as director of the Utah Issues Information Program, and founding director of the Lowell Bennion Community Service Center and the University Neighborhood Partners. She currently is a member of the Utah Citizens Counsel (UCC) with Dee Rowland. 11 is that our Mormon neighbors . . . We started an adult volleyball group for Saturday nights and played outside on the school grounds and then in the winter we rented time in the elementary school gym. That group started out with everybody on the street, but then we would go to someone’s house afterwards and some people had beer. Soon the LDS neighbors weren’t comfortable with that, and even though John and I don’t drink beer, it just created a division. And another part of it is the Church—your church—keeps you very busy! (laughs) Oh, we also joined the Utah Symphony Chorus. We auditioned that first summer and joined, and that group, I’m sure, was primarily LDS. I just played tennis this morning, and I think the people I play tennis with regularly are mostly LDS. So there were those things that mingled us, but so many things kept us apart, and I don’t think there were very many LDS women in the League of Women Voters either. I don’t know. But it was always… Oh, now about my two girls at Brighton High. I was part of the League of Women Voters and that was the time of the Equal Rights Amendment. 9 I wasn’t active in that whole thing like Irene was. But my two daughters took their feelings about supporting the Equal Rights Amendment to their social studies classes where they were discussing it. The bottom line was: they didn’t have a date all through high school; they didn’t go to their proms. Besides that, they got steered out of calculus because they were girls—and that wasn’t a Mormon thing; that was a cultural thing, I guess, at that time. So one ended up being a National Park Ranger and the other is the one who finances affordable housing and so on. So they had to make up for those high school drawbacks in college. One other was that Brighton gave only the ACT test, and I wasn’t smart enough to realize that for kids who wanted to go to school out of state you had to have the SAT test. So they both ended up going in state. Audrey graduated from USU [Utah State University] and Amy graduated from the University of Utah, but then she got a master’s degree from USC [University of Southern California]. The next three girls, we sent to Judge 10— at great inconvenience! (laughs) The bus system was not that great. MC: And you did that because you thought they’d have a better experience in high school? 9 The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was passed by Congress in 1972, but an amendment cannot become law without two-thirds majority of states ratifying the amendment. At first states were ratifying the amendment without much fanfare, but as opposition began to build, some state legislatures failed to ratify the amendment (e.g. Utah) and other states rescinded ratification (e.g. Idaho). In 1976 the LDS Church presidency issued a statement opposing passage of the ERA. Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City is a private, Catholic high school with a long-standing reputation for academic excellence. 10 12 DR: Yes, and they did. Best of all, they got great scholarships. Angela went to Dartmouth, Allison went to Yale, and Amber went to Carleton 11 on scholarships. I think it was the counseling that made the difference; there was great counseling. MC: And they got to take calculus? DR: They took calculus! So the school thing was . . . our two older girls still wince when they drive by Brighton. It’s interesting that, even so, Amy has moved back here. But they had a hard time in high school, so that was unfortunate. And as I said, I have good, close Mormon friends and religion is not an issue, but at school, at that time, it was. Part of it was that division in the community, I think, with the Equal Rights Amendment. I’m sure Irene talked about that yesterday. 12 I didn’t go to any of those events. I don’t know what I was doing, but I wasn’t there. MC: Well, some of those activities occurred earlier, and you got here in 1974. Some of it happened just as you were settling in, and you were worried about keeping the front door closed! DR: Exactly! (laughs) MC: So I don’t think you really got involved until later. DR: No, I didn’t. MC: So what issues were interesting to you as you got into the League of Women Voters? DR: Oh, I think, the international issues mostly, and then environmental issues too. I remember way back in Cheyenne, we were driving our Volkswagen bus and actually every Saturday going door to door collecting newspapers, that is, having people put their newspapers out on the corner. That was our effort at trying to recycle. Remember the Carter administration 13 when we put on sweaters and lowered our thermostats? To conserve heat, 11 Carleton University is located in Northfield, Minnesota. Irene Fisher was interviewed for this Women’s Legacy Archives series on 3 June 2014. 13 Energy was one of President Jimmy Carter’s biggest concerns. In April 1977 in a televised speech, he called for a comprehensive energy policy. His proposals emphasized conservation and envisioned a smooth transition to an era of scarce and high-priced oil, a concern raised by the Arab oil embargo crisis of 1973-74. Carter’s proposals relied heavily on the taxing power to encourage people to shift from large automobiles to small ones, to cut back on the miles they drove, to insulate their homes and workplaces, and to shift from natural gas and oil to coal, nuclear power, and solar energy. Carter led the way by installing solar heating panels and turning down the thermostat in the White House. 12 13 the schools in Cheyenne actually had to double up, running two sessions per day. So our girls went to school at 7:00 a.m. because they did two sessions in the junior high. So we were very environmentally conscious. MC: Before most people in Cheyenne, I think, were. DR: Yes. MC: The environmental movement came late, I think, to the West. DR: Yes. So, there was that, and I had to make up for having five children, which wasn’t environmentally correct (laughs), so I thought I had to do extra! So we had our Volkswagen bus that we drove forever and ever. And John and I were active in chorus and little theater groups. And then, the Vietnam War: we protested the bombing of Hanoi. I remember, we had a walk in front of the capital to protest the Christmas Eve bombing of Hanoi. 14 It was a very small group because of the Warren Air Force Base 15 there. The servicemen at Warren were very essential to the community, and we met a lot of them. I remember hating to see them be deployed. They did one-year tours of duty; remember that era when you went for one year? We saw so many of them come back with a drug addiction. I was not in favor of the Vietnam War. MC: You’re saying firsthand you saw what it did to these soldiers? DR: Yes, to the point that I remember saying to one young man who had become close to our family and spent a lot of time with us, “I’ll help you. I’ll hide you in the basement, or something.” (laughs) But he did go; he went and came back with a drug addiction. We kept in contact with him for many years, but it took a toll. Anyway, I was a peace activist then, and I think I was in an organization called Another Mother for Peace 16 at that time, at least I remember having a sign [in front of our home] saying “Another Mother for Peace.” With five little kids, I wasn’t doing a whole lot, but I think I wrote letters. And then watching the Civil Rights issues unfold from a distance . . . I was very concerned, having had that connection with Washington. Even though I didn’t live in D.C. that long, watching the demonstrations there I felt very connected. The largest ever U.S. bombing campaign since World War II took place from the 18th to the 29th of December, 1972, when U.S. B-52 bombers dropped at least 20,000 tons of explosives on North Vietnam, mostly the capital city Hanoi. The air campaign became known as the Christmas Bombings. 15 Francis E. Warren Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located approximately 3 miles west of Cheyenne, Wyoming. 16 Another Mother for Peace (AMP) is a grassroots anti-war advocacy group founded in 1967 in opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam. 14 14 MC: So it wasn’t the League that got you involved? DR: No, it wasn’t. In fact, I was disappointed in the League because when the MX issue 17 came up, we didn’t have a position. I remember going to a hearing where Governor Scott Matheson 18 was presiding—I think I was President of the League of Women Voters then— and we couldn’t come out against it. All we could do was ask questions about it (laughs). I remember that hearing distinctly, where we could just raise questions, and hope that would make a difference. But I got active independently with the MX Information Center. 19 MC: Why do you think you got involved so early as an activist? What would you attribute that to? DR: I don’t know, but I think my first advocacy was probably as a young woman. When I found out I was pregnant—and I was thrilled to be having a baby—I went straight to the library and read Dr. Grantly Dick-Read, who was an English obstetrician, about natural childbirth. 20 I went to my obstetrician in Omaha and said, “I want natural childbirth.” He just gave me a funny look. “And I want to breastfeed my baby.” I distinctly remember him just looking at me—I think he was looking at my flat chest!—and saying, “Well, you can try.” (laughs) That was for breastfeeding. (So I guess maybe I had some German stubbornness or something.) But I didn’t get to have a natural childbirth the first time. When I delivered, I ended up at the teaching hospital, and I remember just being horrified that there were all these men there. (They were all men then.) There were the obstetricians, of course, but then the interns came in to witness the birth too, and I was just horrified. I said to myself, I am not going to make a sound. And I didn’t! Louise Degn (LD): What were you horrified about? DR: Well, that here I had to lie there with all these strangers in the room! I was planning to deliver at the downtown hospital, but it turned out that when I called and said I was in labor, 17 The MX Mobile Missile, as outlined by the Air Force in the late 1970s, would have shuttled 200 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) around the desert on both sides of the Utah/Nevada border. 18 Scott M. Matheson was the 12th Governor of Utah from 1977 to 1985. 19 The MX Information Center was central to the volunteer brigade who sent out newsletters, held fundraisers, and staged rallies to inform the public and keep the MX in the media. 20 Childbirth Without Fear: The Principles and Practice of Natural Childbirth (1942) became a bestseller. The publication caused widespread controversy but, encouraged by many women who had given birth using the ‘Dick-Read method,’ he dedicated his life to promoting natural childbirth without medical interventions, particularly anesthesia. 15 my obstetrician was at the Bishop Clarkson Hospital in Omaha, which was affiliated with a teaching hospital. [Bishop Clarkson took interns on rotation from UNMC medical school in Omaha.] So I wasn’t prepared for that. There weren’t natural childbirth classes then, but I’d read it all and I’d gone to see what the delivery room looked like, and I was all prepared. But we had to go to the hospital where the obstetrician was, and I wasn’t prepared to have these interns standing watching. MC: How many were there? DR: Oh, well, I don’t know, but too many! I think there were probably three in addition to the doctor but . . . and they were all males and yeah, I just didn’t like that. MC: Where was your own husband? DR: He couldn’t be in the delivery room in those days. He never was allowed in, even with our fifth child, and by then I was able to have natural childbirth. But still the man could not be in the delivery room. MC: So he wasn’t there, but you had several other males there! DR: Right. So that was my earliest advocacy. And then for breastfeeding, I got no support from the obstetrician or pediatrician, who of course was also a male. They didn’t have any advice. So I breastfed for only three months and consequently was pregnant again! (I must have gotten pregnant immediately after I stopped breastfeeding.) But by the time I was pregnant with Angela, our third child, I heard about La Leche League 21 being formed in Chicago, so I got in touch with them. In fact, one of the other women—three of us formed a La Leche League chapter in Cheyenne, Wyoming—one of them, Ellen Smith, was LDS and she was just my closest friend. We formed a chapter of La Leche League, the organization that was formed by this group of women in Chicago to promote breast feeding. They had a wonderful book 22 and we started having meetings to promote it in Cheyenne. But the Cheyenne daily newspaper would not publish the notices of our meetings. We had the meetings in our homes, but we wanted to advertise them to help other women who La Leche League began in Franklin Park, Illinois (Chicago suburbs), in 1956 and became incorporated in 1958. It is now an international, nonprofit organization to help mothers worldwide to breastfeed through mother-to-mother support, encouragement, information, and education, and to promote a better understanding of breastfeeding as an important element in the healthy development of the baby and mother. 22 The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. (Franklin Park, IL: La Leche League of Franklin Park, 1958). 21 16 wanted to breastfeed, and the paper would not publish it! Because it had the word breast in it, they would not publish it. (laughs) I don’t know how long that went on, but that was the initial objection. “Why won’t you put our notice in the newspaper? You had it in writing the right number of days ahead of time.” So that was definitely an advocacy effort on my part, both for a more natural childbirth and for breastfeeding. By the time I had my fifth child, she stopped breastfeeding on her second birthday. And no [milk] allergies and no . . . well, I’m still an advocate, and I’m happy to see that breastfeeding is much more common now. MC: My sense is that one of the things that drove your activism was how much you were reading. You must have been reading newspapers, and books, and everything. DR: Yes, I remember in Cheyenne as a young mom having a subscription to Time and to Life magazine. In fact, I remember waiting to go to the hospital to deliver one child because the mailman hadn’t delivered! It was the day Time magazine came. Not that that was the highest point of literature! (laughs) But I guess, yes, I had a real interest in politics and in global issues. MC: It sounds like your husband was interested as well? DR: Well, no. He’s very technical … actually, no, he’s a renaissance kind of man 23: he’s a great singer as well. But he’s not an advocate, which is interesting. He supports me totally, but he doesn’t join in. Once in a while he’ll read the newspaper and say something like, “Why is this happening?” and I’ll say, “Well, write a letter!” (laughs) But no, he doesn’t and that is very interesting. When I said, “I’m going to the Soviet Union. I’ll be gone for two weeks. Do you have any problem with that?” he said, “Whatever you want to do; whatever you have to do.” So yes, I was very lucky. MC: Was that for a peace conference? DR: The first time was for women’s issues. Well, to continue on the advocacy theme, here’s a little background: remember the early ‘80s when President Reagan was talking about “limited nuclear war”? 24 I was invited to go to a conference in Washington, D.C., just out of the blue. It was Lloyd Bliss, 25 who I knew through the League, and she gave my name to 23 A renaissance man is interested and proficient in a wide range of fields, usually spanning some combination of science and the arts. John Rowland is an actor and singer as well as an electronics engineer with the railroad, for instance. 24 President Ronald Reagan’s remark in October 1981 that he could envision a nuclear war limited to Europe unleashed a political storm. 25 Edith Lloyd Garrison Bliss (1914-1993) had a distinguished career in public life, serving on numerous state and local committees dedicated to the environment, the arts, and the 17 somebody so I was invited to go to a conference in Washington, which was a big thrill for me because I wasn’t working. I was still a stay-at-home mom. It was a great conference, and it was about the need for women to be active in peace issues, and I met Betty Bumpers 26 who was the wife of Senator Dale Bumpers from Arkansas. 27 She later formed out of that conference a group called Peace Links, and she was looking to have Peace Links in each state, or other communities, so I volunteered. I came back all fired up about this. You know, there is no way if we have nuclear war that we can limit it. We can’t let that happen. So I came back and talked to Esther Landa 28 about it. I knew her through the League of Women Voters. I don’t know if she gave me Grethe Peterson’s name, but I called Grethe Peterson 29 who was, at that time, the wife of the president of the University [of Utah]. She had gone on a trip to the Soviet Union. (I mean, I just called her out of the blue, and it took all of my courage because, you know, University President’s wife and I’m just a nobody.) She asked if I could meet with her. Anyway, we formed a chapter. The first thing we did was have a luncheon, and we were able to use the old Alumni House. (That was before the new one was built.) The idea of Peace Links was not particularly to form a new group but to get already established women’s groups to put on their agendas a conversation about peace and about nuclear issues. The whole thing was to appeal to the mother in most of us (even those of us who weren’t mothers) about what kind of a life we were going to leave—would there be life judiciary. Her particular dedication was to the Utah League of Women Voters, which she helped reactivate in the early 1950’s. 26 Elizabeth Flanagan Bumpers (b.1925) is an advocate for childhood immunizations and world peace. She and Rosalynn Carter ran a successful campaign to ensure that all American school children were immunized. 27 Dale Bumpers (1925-2016), a former Arkansas governor and U.S. senator, who earned the nickname “giant killer” for taking down incumbents, was known for clothing his advocacy in entertaining stories and colorful colloquialisms and for his passionate speech defending Bill Clinton during the president's impeachment trial. 28 Esther Rosenblatt Landa, an early proponent of women's rights, co-founded Utah's first Head Start program, served on the Salt Lake City Board of Education, became an influential Democrat in the Beehive State and traveled the country as president of the National Council of Jewish Women. Landa became legendary in Utah as well as nationally and internationally with friendships that included the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. She died on December 25, 2014 at age 102. 29 Grethe Baliff Peterson sees herself as a bridge-builder. She began Exponent II while living in Boston. In Utah she became involved in numerous community and church groups—ranging from chairman of the Utah Endowment for the Humanities and the Salt Lake Mayor's Task Force on Poverty to serving on the Utah Sentencing Commission and the Young Women's General Board of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to name only a few of the 27 boards listed on her resume. 18 for our children and grandchildren? We had that wonderful luncheon. Betty Bumpers came out as the keynote speaker, and she’s just full of energy. So, we formed our own Peace Links chapter. But Noemi Mattis 30 was adamant—I didn’t know her before that—she was one of the people who was adamant that we could not use the word peace, that it was too [politically charged]. We wouldn’t be able to reach out if we had that in our title. So we spent hours and hours finding a name, and we ended up with “Women Concerned About Nuclear War.” We weren’t against nuclear war. That was too radical. We were women concerned about nuclear war. (laughs) Well, that was a wonderful experience because I met so many people. Our goal was to provide speakers to educate ourselves and then to provide speakers to women’s clubs to put the nuclear issue on their agendas, because we couldn’t let this conversation go on about “limited nuclear war.” There wasn’t—there couldn’t be—such a thing. Eventually the national Peace Links invited fifteen women from the Soviet Union to visit; Betty Bumpers made connections in the Soviet Union. They came here to America, and we were asked if Salt Lake would host three Soviet women, and of course we said yes. They happened to be here at the time of Senator Hatch’s women’s conference, which I had been a part of planning. (Or had I? Maybe that was later conferences.) It took place at the old Hotel Utah. Grethe used her influence with Senator Hatch 31 to let them do a workshop at his women’s conference, which was just incredible. People were so curious about these Soviets: what were they like? did they have horns? or what? (laughs) They were lined up one place, but we had to move the location of their meeting room to someplace larger because they were such a big hit. We also had a reception for them that Joan Smith32, who was a member of Women Concerned About Nuclear War, arranged at the old art museum on campus, and that was a great success. People were just curious about meeting these women. That was a good experience. Then, while they were here, their escort from the national Peace Links, who was Barbara Levin, the wife of Senator Carl Levin, 33 got a call. (The escorts were all congressional Dr. Noemi P. Mattis is a practicing Salt Lake psychologist. She was appointed with Aileen H. Clyde as co-chair of the Utah Governor’s Task Force on Ritual Abuse for five years. 31 Orrin Hatch is the Republican senior United States Senator for Utah and has served as the President pro tempore of the United States Senate since January 2015. He has been in office since 1977 and is longest serving Senator in United States history. 32 Joan Wasson Smith worked in private practice as a licensed psychotherapist until she accepted the position of Executive Director of the National Conference for Community and Justice, Utah Region. Dr. Smith has served on community boards, including the Salt Lake YWCA, Valley Mental Health, Women Concerned About Nuclear War, Utahns United Against the Nuclear Arms Race, and many more. 33 Carl Milton Levin is a former United States Senator from Michigan, having served from 1979 to 2015. He was the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. 30 19 wives.) She got a call that—I think it was Carl’s mother died, or father—anyway one of her in-laws died suddenly and she had to fly back to Washington. So Betty Bumpers called me and asked if I could accompany our Soviet guests. The other two points on their tour were Las Vegas and Phoenix. I was working—by that time I was working at the Diocese—and I called Bishop Weigand 34 who was my boss and said, “Umm, can I have a few days off to accompany these Soviet women?” And he said, “Well, whatever you have to do.” Oh, the other interesting thing: that was at the time of the bombing in downtown Salt Lake. So these Soviet women were discussing that. Imagine how that appeared to them! Because Americans were the enemy and here there was … MC: You mean the bomb that went off over the Mormon manuscript frauds, the forgeries? Are you talking about that? DR: Yes, the man that’s in prison for life. LD: Mark Hofmann. 35 DR: Yes, thank you. That bombing happened at the same time. So you can imagine what that was like. But anyway, there were three of them and one was Larisa from Moscow who was a physician. It turned out that we both had daughters. She had only one daughter and I had five, but my fourth daughter and her only daughter were the same age, so we had that in common. And we wore the same size clothes, as it turned out. They had a hard time getting clothes [in Russia], and so she went home with many of my clothes. (laughs) We were roommates. Then the other two: one was from Leningrad and the other from Uzbekistan 36, and they stuck together. You know, no one was sure, were they KGB? It was a big mystery, but we bonded because we were women—and they didn’t want nuclear war either. And we were all more than “concerned” about nuclear war. (laughs) We were against it! 34 William Keith Weigand was appointed Bishop of the Salt Lake Diocese from September 1980 to November 1993. 35 Mark W. Hofmann is an American counterfeiter and convicted murderer, and is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished forgers in history. He specialized in forgeries related to LDS Church history, and later turned to homemade bombs to prevent his being exposed. Hofmann has been serving a life sentence at the Utah State Prison since 1988. 36 The Soviet women were all members of the Soviet Women's Committee, billed as a nongovernmental group to “promote friendship and understanding among women all over the world.” Of the 15 visiting women from the U.S.S.R., three traveled together with Barbara Levin to Salt Lake City: Zoya Samoletova, 55, a seamstress, Oydin Abbsova, 48, the minister of education in Uzbek, and Larisa Shuratovskaya, 46, a physician in Moscow. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1985/10/16/speaking-theirpeace/02f63432-58b3-418d-b27c-4618703894e2/ 20 I accompanied them to Las Vegas, which was an interesting thing in itself. I remember the hostesses there. (We stayed in homes but always two together, so Larisa and I shared a bedroom, and the other two always stayed together.) One host there took us to the lion show, “Siegfried and Roy.” 37 We went to that and they were shocked, and so was I, by the scantily clad performers. This was a lion show but there were also scantily clad dancers, and they were saying, “Oh, you degrade women by doing this,” and I said, “Yes, we do!” I’d never been to a Las Vegas show either. After that, one of the hostesses there, Sister Rosemary Lynch 38 who founded the Nevada Desert Experience, 39 drove us out to the test site to peacefully protest the nuclear testing that was going on. (Was that the first time I met her? I don’t remember.) She was a Franciscan. The other Sister who was with her was from one of the Eastern Soviet Bloc countries, so it was really uncomfortable for her to try to be friends with these Soviet women. At one point she was crying while we were at a high school. She’d left the room. I found her out in the hall crying, and she said, “Dee, those people killed my family.” I think she’d probably come as a refugee from—I don’t remember if it was the former Czechoslovakia or what country that she was from—but I didn’t have to say anything. She volunteered, “No, it wasn’t their fault. They didn’t kill. They aren’t responsible for what their parents did.” I get goose bumps thinking about it, how emotional it was. But I remember driving down the Las Vegas strip with Sister Rosemary Lynch, who was driving what I’m sure was a donated car—it was a big old Chevy. So two Franciscan nuns and three Soviet women and me. I thought, What’s a little farm girl from Iowa doing in Las Vegas, at two in the morning? What kind of… how did I get here? 37 Siegfried & Roy were a duo of former stage magicians and entertainers who became known for their appearances with white lions and white tigers. From 1990 until 2003, the duo performed Siegfried & Roy at the Mirage Resort and Casino, which was touted as the mostvisited show in Las Vegas, Nevada. They currently run a menagerie at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas. 38 Born in Phoenix, Sister Lynch became a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity community in 1932 and took her vows in 1934. She joined the staff of the Franciscan Center in Las Vegas in 1977. Once in Las Vegas, she began visiting Nevada's nuclear test site. She was part of the first “Lenten Desert Experience” at the Nevada Test Site in 1982 to protest ongoing nuclear testing and violence. The movement later became known as the Nevada Desert Experience. She died in 2011. 39 In the spring of 1982, activists working for social justice, environmental preservation, and international peace organized a six-week peace vigil at the entrance to the Nevada Test Site, about 60 miles from Las Vegas, Nevada. In 1983 they repeated the vigil, which was successful enough that they started an organization, adding a faith-based component (“prayer-actions for peace”) to the nuclear abolition movement. They named it Nevada Desert Experience or NDE. 21 Then we went on to Phoenix, and people were eager, everybody was curious about these Soviets, these Communist women. That was a great experience. When I said goodbye to them in Phoenix, they said, “Oh, you will come and visit us in the Soviet Union?” I thought, Sure. Three kids in college, are you kidding? I’ll never be able to afford that! That was 1985, and in 1987 Betty Bumpers arranged a “reverse trip.” It was all congressional wives who were going on this return trip to the Soviet Union, but they wanted someone from the West, and (laughs) I guess Elaine Hatch 40 wasn’t available? I don’t know. Anyway, they invited me to come. Then they organized an auxiliary trip, and because the Peace Links group had been meeting, it turned out that we were able to include about seven women from here also. They didn’t travel with us; they traveled in a separate group. MC: Did Emma Lou Thayne 41 go on that? DR: No, Emma Lou went in 1990 when we were both in Kazakhstan. 42 Emma Lou had been in Russia before on a separate trip that was, I think, a poet’s exchange or something connected with English literature. But yes, Emma Lou was a very active member of Peace Links too, so I’m sure you’ve interviewed her. 43 She had her wonderful book of peace poems [How much for the earth? (1983)] that was translated into so many languages. 44 Well, anyway, I got to be an official delegate with those 18 women. They were mostly congressional wives, but the author Anna Quindlen 45 was on that trip, although she was a reporter for the New York Times then. Since then she’s written many books. Anyway, that was a very interesting trip because a lot of it was ceremonial events. Later, in 1990, I went to Kazakhstan with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War 46 as part of the Utah delegation. (To get to Kazakhstan, you first had to go into Moscow.) Wife of Utah’s Senator Orrin Hatch. Emma Lou Thayne (1924-2014) has written thirteen books of poetry, fiction, essays, and travel stories. She has been widely anthologized and has published internationally on kinship and peace among people and nations. She has been active in encouraging public attention to mental health, spirituality, and the advancement of women. 42 Kazakhstan, a Central Asian country and former Soviet republic, extends from the Caspian Sea in the west to the Altai Mountains at its eastern border with China and Russia. 43 Emma Lou Thayne was interviewed on 7 January 2013 for the Women’s Legacy Archive. 44 Emma Lou Thayne, How much for the earth?: A suite of poems about time for considering (1983). 45 Anna Marie Quindlen is an American author, journalist, and opinion columnist whose New York Times column, Public and Private, won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1992. She began her journalism career in 1974 as a reporter for the New York Post. 46 International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) is a non-partisan federation of national medical groups in 63 countries, representing doctors, medical students, other health workers, and concerned people who share the common goal of creating a more peaceful and secure world freed from the threat of nuclear annihilation. The organization's 40 41 22 In between those two trips, I had been going to the Nevada test site for peaceful demonstrations. Usually a carload of us would travel down because you always needed a driver if you crossed the line. That was a very serious [step] and I went there many times before I decided to cross the line, which meant just stepping onto the property. You announced beforehand that you were going to do that, so that they would be prepared because when you were then arrested, the authorities had to drive you to the county seat. The Nevada test site is 78 miles northwest of Las Vegas in Nye County, which is a different county than Las Vegas. The county seat [Tonopah] was another . . . I don’t know how many miles, but further west. I was arrested three times, and one time I was transported in a school bus. There was always a demonstration on the commemoration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 47 so on those days they had school buses out there to transfer the people to the jail in plastic handcuffs. I remember sitting three in a seat in the back of the bus. MC: You were taken to the county seat. Did you go before a judge? DR: Yes, and I was prepared to go to jail if I had to. By then I had the empty nest, and I’d talked to my husband about it and he’d said, “Whatever you have to do.” I think I was jailed only the last time—by then I was working for the Catholic Diocese. Bishop Weigand had been one of the five authors of the pastoral [letter] on peace of 1982 or ’83. 48 In fact, that’s why I went to work for the church, because I thought, Oh, I like this.” At first I said, “I can’t work for the Catholic Church; I’m not holy enough.” And I didn’t like the hierarchy. But then I found out Bishop Weigand drove a little Volkswagen Rabbit, and he lived on the west side and had a garden, and I thought, Oh, I can work for that guy! (laughs) None of this kissing ring stuff. I can work for this kind of guy. So I was going to the test site, and I thought, Well, I’d better tell him. I said, “I’m not sure, but I think I might want to cross the line. Is that going to be a problem for you?” He said, “Just don’t tell me about it!” (laughs). I just love the fact that he said, “Just don’t tell me about it.” He knew he couldn’t say no because he had signed on to that peace document saying that nuclear war had to be contained, that we had to get rid of nuclear weapons because sooner or later they were going to be used. So I sort of put him on the spot, but he was very good about it. LD: What’s his first name? headquarters is in Somerville, Massachusetts. IPPNW was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. 47 August 6th and 9th are the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. 48 May 3, 1983, the Catholic bishops in the United States published their landmark pastoral letter, “The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response,” a political and moral analysis of U.S. nuclear policies during the cold war. Writing as “pastors, not politicians,” the bishops rejected nuclear war and called upon the United States to reverse the arms race. 23 DR: William—William Weigand. He was later transferred to Sacramento and was the Bishop of Sacramento. MC: So did you ever go to jail? DR: I never served jail time: each time the charges were dropped. You signed a paper to say you would appear back in court in Nye County (way out there in Nevada). But the third time I was arrested, the court date was in June and it was the date of Angela’s wedding, our third daughter’s wedding. This was a couple of months ahead of the wedding date, so we had a couple of months’ notice. But the problem was that she was marrying the son of a Wisconsin judge, and he had already arranged his court dates so that he could have that week off to come to Utah for the wedding. So I had to call her right away. So we were released once we signed that paper agreeing to return to court. Then you have to have someone pick you up there. So it’s late. I think that time it was Ami Franks who was driving us back. Sometimes it would be burning hot out in the desert, and you just wanted to head home, and you had enough drivers so that you could make the drive all the way from Nye County seat up to Salt Lake. But that wasn’t a hot time, so we stopped somewhere along I-15 to get something to eat. This is before cell phones, so I went to the back and asked if I could use their phone. I called Angela and said, “Angela, I have a problem. I have to appear in court. I was arrested!” While I was telling her this, I could see everything going on in the kitchen—the phone was in the kitchen—and everything stopped! (laughs) Oooh, who is using our phone? Anyway, Angela said she was proud of me and said we’d work it out. Don’t worry. She was cool about it, but I thought, Well, what will we do? To complicate it, she was having her wedding in Bluff, Utah. She was teaching down there and that’s where she met her husbandto-be, who was a river runner just that summer that she met him, and they decided to have their wedding in Bluff. (It was complicated enough to have a wedding away from either the bride’s or the groom’s home without adding my court date problem!) Anyway, at some point, we got the letter that the charges were dropped! Nye County did that because they were overwhelmed by the number of people who were crossing the line. Indeed, some of the jails for the people who did go to jail were condominiums. They had to rent condominiums! We just overwhelmed the system. So I was a beneficiary of the power of people standing up and being willing to do that. So when this small county didn’t have the facilities or the resources to support so many people being in their custody, I didn’t have to serve time. When we went to Kazakhstan later, the people told us that they had heard about it. In fact, they named their campaign the Nevada-Semipalatinsk Movement after Nevada and 24 Semipalatinsk, which is the name of the community closest to the Soviet testing site. 49 But then the Soviets stopped testing before we did, and that was an issue: we’ve got to stop because they’ve stopped—and what a propaganda thing that is for them! The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War had their conference in Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan. (The community was then called Alma-Ata because it was still the Soviet Union; only a year later, when the Soviet Union broke up, they went back to Almaty, their original name). It was really moving to go and meet those people. We thought we were courageous, but they didn’t live in a democracy; they really took greater risk to protest their government’s policy. While we were there, they also took us to see children who were born with incredible birth defects because of living next to that test site before it was closed. To visit those children was a whole other moving experience. (Emma Lou was at that conference.) Sorry, am I rambling? MC: No, your life is full of great … DR: Yes, isn’t it, for a little farm girl! MC: Did you ever get any pushback from fellow Catholics about your activities? I’m just wondering what your experience is because some Mormon women get pushback if they’re activists. What is it like in the Catholic culture? DR: Well, by then I was a government liaison, and I also chaired the Peace and Justice Commission for the diocese, and it was those members who were going with me [to the Nevada Test Site]. I remember an elderly couple from Ogden, the first time we went. Oh, I have a picture of them holding my hands as we walked up to the line! (They’re both deceased now.) I worked for three different Bishops while on the Commission, and they all were supportive. I know they got letters, but if we look back at Catholic teaching, [what we did is justified]… and luckily they were three incredible men who backed me up incredibly. LD: Is this Peace and Justice Commission part of the Diocese? DR: Yes, and the idea is that the commission would represent every parish, at least we tried to. The Diocese covers the whole state of Utah, but at that time it wasn’t practical to have [full representation]. We had people from Ogden, and Park City, and Tooele at various 49 The Nevada-Semipatalinsk campaign gained inspiration from, and shared solidarity and resources with activists protesting the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. It was formed in 1989 and was one of the first major anti-nuclear movements in the former Soviet Union. 25 times serve on it, to educate ourselves about the social justice teachings of the Catholic Church and then to try to spread that to their individual parishes. MC: Your role in working for the Catholic Church was to do this very thing. DR: Right, but then also it was the legislative aspect, and that was kind of tricky because at the legislative level being an activist was not a popular thing to be. But that made it interesting and challenging. So yes, I started working for the Diocese in 1984 and, wow, it was just doing all the things I had volunteered to do before. (Oh, I did have another job before that—I went back to work shortly after our youngest child went to full-time school.) Having that diocese job was doing all the things that I wanted to do as a volunteer and getting paid for it . . . not paid much—church wages! (laughs) You know about that. But I felt very privileged to have that job, and as I said, when I was first invited I said “No, I am not holy enough,” but it worked out for almost 25 years. MC: Have you since retired? DR: Yes, I retired three years ago and found a wonderful replacement who’s doing a great job. MC: So let me ask about a more controversial issue, and that is abortion. Do you want to comment a little on that? DR: Sure, sure. I’m totally against abortion, I guess because of having carried five children, and then I had two miscarriages after that, which were really hurtful for me. My friend said, “You’re lucky you miscarried,” but I couldn’t see it that way. But that doesn’t relate: I have great sympathy for anyone who’s pregnant and doesn’t want the baby. So that is the toughest issue. I don’t think I even approve of reversing Roe vs. Wade. 50 I think it’s something we need to work on so that a woman doesn’t feel the need for an abortion, that we support her, so that first she has access to birth control. I do believe totally in having 50 A landmark decision in 1973 by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. The Court ruled that a right to privacy extended to a woman's decision to have an abortion, but that this right must be balanced against the state's two legitimate interests in regulating abortions: protecting women's health and protecting the potentiality of human life. Arguing that these state interests became stronger over the course of a pregnancy, the Court tied the state regulation of abortion to the third trimester of pregnancy. Roe v. Wade reshaped national politics, dividing much of the United States into pro-choice and pro-life camps, while activating grassroots movements on both sides. 26 access to birth control. (For a while, the effective birth control wasn’t safe. I think it probably is now, or safer then it was. I think the first pill was pretty tough on women’s bodies.) Yes, that was always the hardest issue for me. Even when the League [of Women Voters] took a position I disagreed with of supporting access to abortion, it was hard because I support the individual woman. It’s just a hard, hard issue. MC: So you said the League took a position for abortion? In favor of Roe vs. Wade? DR: Yes, in favor of the right to choose. MC: But you felt you couldn’t support that decision? DR: Right. MC: And did you get some pushback from League members on that? DR: Well, that was the other part of that. It was the only issue in my history with the League where they didn’t have the usual consensus study: we didn’t have meetings about it; it was just decided at the national level. MC: Oh. DR: Nanette Benowitz 51 was, I think, president at that time. (I was done being president.) I remember saying to her something about being uncomfortable with it. She said, “Oh, don’t worry about it; it’ll never be strong. It will never happen in Utah. It’ll never be an issue.” I guess the way I reconciled it was to work for access to birth control. But I also recognize that . . . I don’t know. It’s just because, again, to me, the more we learn, the more science learns about the fetus, I just can’t be comfortable with a line being drawn: “When does a person become human?” I can’t help but think that as we learn more and more about life in utero, there’s got to be a better way than the violence of an abortion. MC: So you have a more conservative view than Utah law right now. 52 51 Nanette Jackson Benowitz, a member of the Salt Lake League of Women Voters for many years, served in many positions such as Voter Editor, president of the local Salt Lake chapter, and president of the Utah League. 52 As of 2014, Utah has a 72-hour waiting period after a woman receives state-required counseling before undergoing an abortion. Utah also requires parental consent for a minor to have the procedure (a judge can intervene on this), and parents must be told about the procedure 24 hours before it takes place. Public funds and private insurance may be used on abortions only when a woman's life is endangered, or her health is severely compromised, in cases of incest or rape, or in cases of fetal impairment. 27 DR: Yes, I do. So yes, that’s the difference. Because with rape, if that fetus is human, it’s not the fetus’s fault! But at the same time, [it’s not the girl’s.] And then what happens if you can …so often it’s a stepfather and what if he tells himself, “Well, I can keep on doing this. [If she gets pregnant,] she can just get an abortion. I can keep on abusing her because she can get an abortion.” I don’t know, it’s the hardest thing. MC: Yes, it’s a difficult issue. DR: That’s the only way to say it, “difficult,” and that I’m not comfortable with a culture that takes it lightly. In fact, maybe that’s the best way to put it because I don’t think that overthrowing Roe vs. Wade is the answer either. I think it has to come from within, it has to be a cultural norm where we all support life in any form. To me that ties right in with being against the death penalty. And I’m against the death penalty! When we have other means of protecting society from a murderer, we need to use those means, and let that person have a chance for redemption— not be the judge, not kill to show that killing is wrong. … Heavy duty stuff! MC: Yes. So tell me, how would you characterize your experience working with the legislature for the Catholic Church? DR: Oh, it was fun! MC: Is there something you can say to give us some sense of it? DR: It was a challenge. First of all, because the [Utah] legislature agreed on abortion, which so often consumes other legislatures, I didn’t have to work on that. Because that wasn’t going to happen, it gave me the luxury of working on other issues, like life after birth, or in other words, on healthcare for that pregnant mother and healthcare for her baby, and education. Education for everybody. So, yes, it was almost a luxury, in that sense, to be able to focus on the other aspects of life—and you can’t be “pro-life” and then deny healthcare! And I’m still working on Medicaid expansion, on getting the governor and legislature to accept Medicaid expansion. MC: That’s a tough issue too, isn’t it? DR: Yes. But not as tough. It’s an easy issue as far as asking why would you not: if you claim to support life, why would you not give everybody access to healthcare? 28 MC: I have another question: did any of your positions come from a feminist point of view? Do you think of yourself as a feminist and very much a part of the feminist movement? DR: Yes, I do. There’s actually a national organization “Feminists for Life.” 53 MC: Were you part of that organization? DR: Hmmm, I remember getting a magazine from them through the years for a while, but I don’t think there was a local chapter. I was glad to hear that there was a group like that [with a pro-life not pro-choice agenda] and that I wasn’t the only one who had these ideas. Besides, how could I not be a feminist when my daughters were told they didn’t need calculus because they were girls? (laughs) MC: I guess what I’m asking is: even from your earliest years—the anti-Vietnam war and your earliest activism—I don’t hear a strong feminist orientation around that. It was about the war; it was about peace. Am I characterizing that correctly? DR: Yes, although the purpose of Peace Links was to get women educated about the danger of nuclear war and to bring more women and encourage more women to speak out, so in that sense… MC: So you were very focused on bringing women to politics and to political issues and peace. DR: Well, yes, specifically to peace because, again, it’s a life or death issue for the planet. That sounds extreme, but it was extreme. And to just assume that war was something that men did, not our concern? No, we had to be involved in that discussion. In order to speak intelligently, we had to educate ourselves about what exactly is “Star Wars” and the nuclear defense shield. 54 We had to get into the technical issues to be conversant, to even talk about Feminists for Life of America (FFL) is a non-profit, pro-life feminist, non-governmental organization. Established in 1972 and now based in Alexandria, Virginia, the organization describes itself as “shaped by the core feminist values of justice, nondiscrimination, and nonviolence.” FFL is dedicated to “systematically eliminating the root causes that drive women to abortion—primarily lack of practical resources and support—through holistic, woman-centered solutions.” FFL publishes a quarterly magazine, The American Feminist. 54 The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a proposed missile defense system to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons. The system, which was to combine ground-based units and orbital deployment platforms, was first publicly announced by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of mutual assured destruction. Given the space-based antimissile system element, it was immediately dubbed “Star Wars.” 53 29 it. So yes, I think I’m a feminist. But, I didn’t like categorizing issues, like saying if you’re a feminist, you only care about equal pay or something…. No, you care about everything; everything is a feminist issue. MC: I really hear you linking all these issues together. DR: Yes. Now it’s environment, particularly with climate change, that’s the threat to life, and it’ll be the poor who suffer. The poor already are the victims of it as water levels rise and they don’t have the resources to pick up and move somewhere else. So to me, there’s no separation of issues. MC: Is there any aspect of your life at this point that we haven’t touched on that you want to say something about? DR: Oh, well, I’m sure you’re wanting to wind this up! LD: What was your first job when you went to work when your kids were [all in school]? DR: Oh actually, this is very interesting. It was at the Utah Senate, being the calendaring clerk, and it was Genevieve Atwood 55 who recommended me. (She knew me from the League of Women Voters.) I had done some volunteer jobs, but calendaring clerk for the Utah Senate was my first paying job. And then I went on to work for the [University of Utah’s] Lowell Bennion Community Service Center, 56 in Information and Referral [I&R] 57. So that was “direct services,” helping people; meanwhile my volunteer things were policy. It was a great experience. I remember taking people who had come in for services, actually loading them up, taking them to the capitol. I’d say, “You know, let’s talk to your legislature. Tell them your position, what’s going on in your life. They need to meet people firsthand who are coming to a food bank. They need to understand that it happens to regular 55 Genevieve Atwood’s career has focused on the interface of science and public policy. In public service, she has 6 years legislative experience as a Utah state legislator, 8 years as a state-agency head, many years’ experience on policy and advisory boards, and the experience of local/state/national, nonpartisan and partisan, political campaigns. As a scientist her primary interests as a physical geographer are (a) coastal processes of closed-basin lakes and (b) how to communicate Earth science concepts to teachers, policy makers, and laypeople. 56 The Lowell Bennion Community Service Center at the University of Utah was dedicated in 1987. The center fosters lifelong service and civic participation by engaging the university and its students with the greater community in projects designed to address an identified community need, usually in partnership with an existing public or private agency. 57 Information and Referral (I&R) specialists (in agencies, community organizations, governmental departments and others) help connect people to the services they require. 30 people and see that it’s not that the people are “evil” and unwilling to work. It’s just the way things are.” MC: You mentioned something about Genevieve? DR: Oh yes. So, I didn’t realize that the jobs at the Senate were controlled by the parties. I had always been—I still am—nonpartisan because when I was first working with the League of Women Voters I was voter service chair before I was president, and when you’re voter service chair you have to be nonpartisan, and then working for the Diocese . . . well, I’m still registered as Independent—even though Orrin Hatch [R-Utah] swears that I’m a Democrat! (laughs) I have had this argument with him. “Look! You just look at voting records. I try to vote for the person not the party and once in a while I can find a Republican I want to vote for!” (laughs) Right now we have a great Republican senator. Our Brian Shiozawa 58 is great, and I definitely support him. At that time (this is really ancient history), Moroni Jensen 59 was president of the senate—a Democrat—but it was Genevieve, a Republican, because she knew me through the League of Women Voters, who was recommending me for this job. So it was just ironic that somehow during a Democratic-controlled Senate I got the job on the recommendation of a Republican, and that’s where I worked during the session. Then I got the job with Information and Referral and began really seeing the lack of direct services. Homelessness was just beginning—I mean it wasn’t beginning, but to have families being homeless was a new thing during that time, and unfortunately it’s now an old thing and a continuing thing. So I retired from my job [with the Diocese] three years ago, but I still chair the Gun Violence Prevention Center for Utah, 60 and I helped form something called the Utah Citizens Council. 61 Did Irene [Fisher] talk about that at all? MC: No. And Emma Lou [Thayne] is on that council, right? 58 Brian E. Shiozawa is a Republican member of the Utah State Senate representing District 8 since January 1, 2013. 59 In 1977, Moroni L. Jensen became the president of the Utah Senate. When he died of a heart attack in 1980, Governor Matheson appointed his wife, Vivian, to finish the unexpired portion of his term in the Utah State Senate. 60 The Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah is a non-profit organization working to end the violence and suffering resulting from the misuse of firearms. They provide education and promote legislation and policy intended to reduce gun violence. 61 The Utah Citizens’ Counsel (UCC) is an independent, nonpartisan group of senior community advocates dedicated to improving public policy on complex issues through dialogue, creative problem solving, and consensus building. 31 DR: Right. So now I’m a member of that and am also the facilitator. We took a position for supporting Medicaid expansion and then advocating for clean air. Our first effort with the Utah Citizens Council was redistricting, and supporting an initiative on ethics and government. 62 So you can see the success we had! (laughs) John calls me the Patron Saint of Losing Causes! MC: It’s an important voice though. DR: This afternoon I’m going to an energy summit at the library, in contrast to the governor’s energy summit. 63 We are focused on alternative energy, the need to work on sustainable energy resources, and also finding jobs for people in the coal industry so that we can help them transfer to other work. You know, it can be good for everyone. There are more jobs available with solar energy and wind energy, and somehow we have to get rid of the coal industry while not sacrificing the workers. We have to help them train for other jobs. Because I believe in climate change! (laughs) MC: Let’s finish up with one more question. How do you think all your activism has influenced your daughters? DR: It’s interesting. As I said, they all work for non-profits, but their careers are really varied. For instance, one is in Affordable Housing, as I said. One is a principal of a new school focused on refugees. (She didn’t have money to hire a librarian, so I started a library there. I get to express my love of books as a volunteer there, and that’s fun. Getting kids to read is really hard now with all the distractions of electronic devices.) MC: And then you have a daughter that’s in the Forest Service? 62 “The Utah Legislature currently has an ethical code of conduct that is so vague and general as to be unenforceable, as acknowledged by the Legislature’s own House Ethics Committee…. Utahns for Ethical Government, a nonpartisan citizen group, drafted an ethics initiative with hopes of getting the issue before Utah’s registered voters. The initiative calls for an independent ethics commission to investigate complaints of legislative misconduct and recommend sanctions.” Dixie Huefner, UEG, May 2012 [UEG was unable to get the initiative on the November ballot.] 63 The third annual Governor’s Energy Development Summit was held at the Salt Palace Convention Center in June 2014. The event hosted expert speakers, elected officials, and energy industry leaders, addressing regional issues and future policy. The attendees also visited booths staffed by companies and organizations representing such areas as mining associations, Indian tribes, the Bureau of Land Management, shale oil extraction, and wind farms. 32 DR: Yes, that was her first career. Then when she had her first child (she has two children now), she didn’t want to have a weapon in the house. (Being in the Forest Service, she had law enforcement credentials.) She didn’t want to have a gun in the home when she was a young mother, so she now works for the Health Department in Moab, where she lives, and she also served eight years as a Grand County Council member. So she went into politics, but nonpartisan. (That Grand County Council is nonpartisan, which is really a neat way to do it, I think.) And finally, Alison was a university professor in Mexico, but now she’s moved back here. She’s actually working for the City Council right now, doing research. Did I answer your question? Let's see, how did my activism influence them? Well, I think they have a great awareness of the vulnerable in our society, and they all chose careers that in some way helps people become self-sufficient, or if they aren’t self-sufficient, provides a support system for them. I don’t know if it was my influence or their education, but I’m very proud of the work they do, and that they’re good friends. But you know, they’re not out demonstrating, and that’s okay with me. I think that activism has to be a very personal thing. They’re probably more effective doing good jobs in their professions. That’s a whole other conversation, isn’t it, about how are you most effective? I just think we each do what we can do, and then we let it rest. And that’s where, I think, faith has helped me: if I’m not good at something, I can blame God! (laughs) If She isn't giving me enough skills, then I can blame her. Seriously, though, I think that has protected me from burnout: that I believe that God plays a role in our life if we’re open to whatever opportunities we have to make a difference. And we shouldn’t have any inflated ego when we do make a difference. We just do what feels right for us and, along with that, not judging what anyone else does or doesn't do, which is hopefully a protection against self-righteousness. MC: Well, that’s a great note to end on I think. DR: Well, thank you. I can’t believe you’re taking so much time—and I feel sorry for the transcriber! 33