Alice DeFriez Oral History Interview

Alice Defriez, a lifelong resident of Heber City, Utah, reflects on the significant transformation of her hometown from a small, rural community in the 1980s and 90s to a rapidly growing, more urbanized area. She discusses the challenges of this growth, including increased traffic and strain on resources like water, and expresses a sense of loss for the quiet, close-knit town she knew, where historic buildings and even her childhood home have been replaced. Defriez, who works as a librarian and local historian, also shares her personal and spiritual reflections on the changes, emphasizing the importance of preserving local history and the unique character of rural Utah while acknowledging the inevitability of development.

Crossroads: Change In Rural America Change in Rural Utah TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET Interviewee(s): Others present: Alice Defriez Place of interview: Date of interview: Wasatch County Library; Heber City, Utah October 06, 2023 Interviewer(s): Recordist: Photographer: Mia Shumway; Mary Heers Recording equipment: Transcription equipment: NCH Express Scribe Transcription Software with Power Player foot pedal. Transcribed by/date: Susan Gross/07 May 2024 Transcript proofed by/date: Brief description of interview: Ms. Alice Defriez was raised in Heber City, Utah her entire life. She had experiences living a few different places as an adult, but has spent most of her adult life in Heber City as well. She reminisces what Heber City was like in the 1980s and 1990s, during her childhood, and how it has changed. She works as a librarian for Wasatch County, and does lots of historical research. She feels like Heber City is no longer a rural area. References: MS: AD: MH: Mia Shumway Alice Defriez Mary Heers NOTE: Interjections during pauses, transitions in dialogue (such as “umm”), and false starts and stops in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript noted with brackets. TRANSCRIPTION [00:01] MS: [Laughs] I will have you state your name and where you’re from, as a warm up. So, go ahead when you’re ready. AD: My name is Alice Defriez, and I’m from Heber City, Utah. MS: Beautiful. How long have you lived in Heber City? AD: Without admitting to my age, my parents moved here when I was nine months old. MS: Beautiful; so, your whole live? AD: My whole life. I’m not going to tell you how old I am. MS: That’s perfectly fine. CROSSROADS: CHANGE IN RURAL AMERICA: ALICE DEFRIEZ 1 AD: I’m in several decades, let’s put it that way. MS: [Laughs] Wonderful. AD: I’m closer to 50 than to 25, okay? MS: Perfect. Have you ever lived anywhere but Heber? AD: I lived in Denver, Colorado for about six months; and I lived in California for about a year and a half. And that’s basically it. I lived in Provo a little bit for school, but it always seems that I come back to home. The joke is that my parents are buried here, so now we’re natives; and so, I have to stay here because I have to take care of Mom and Dad. So, we’re official now. MS: Yeah, uh-huh. What did you miss the most when you were not here? AD: It was the mountains. Timpanogos is kind of like my calming – it’s the history, it’s the beauty, it’s the mythology of it; I saw a movie that’s with our local – he works in the movies with animals, and he has a bear, and he was doing it with some celebrities. And I saw the show and I was like, “Those are my mountains!” MS: [Laughs] AD: So, and then when I see that – when I was here, when I was growing up, the elevation and the population were the same. And that was the joke, is the sign was “5600 and something, something feet.” And that’s basically the population. And now, the county is like 30,000-plus. So, I miss my home, small town when it was one stop light and – MS: And now, it’s like what? Three stop lights? AD: Way more than that. MS: [Laughs] A lot of stop lights, yeah. Let’s see, how wonderful; [??] said you do have a story. What’s your like – when you think of Heber, what’s like the first story that comes to mind about growing up here? [02:08] AD: When I was growing up, it felt like that we were the Podunk kids; because my cousins all live in Salt Lake Valley, and whatever. And so, we didn’t feel like it, but they always treated us like we were the rural kids. And had a good education at Wasatch High School, and went on to college. And when I compared notes with people, the only difference between our school was that we were a small school. We still had the AP programs, we still had – what do you call it? We had everything the biggest schools had, pretty much. And I’ve said, considering I had a rural education (if you will), it was a 2A school back then; now it’s what? Twelve-A? I think it’s 5A now. I had a quality education in Wasatch County. We had good teachers, and people who wanted to be here in the early 80s. I don’t know why. It’s because nobody lived here. MS: It’s beautiful here, so that was a lot of why, I think. CROSSROADS: CHANGE IN RURAL AMERICA: ALICE DEFRIEZ 2 AD: Yeah, my parents moved up here in that year – I was nine months old. My dad had been working around the state; he worked for a bank, and he was doing – what are those? Audits for banks, and for businesses; and so, he was gone a lot. And he stayed in a lot of hotels. And he said he wanted – he grew up in a small town; my mom grew up in a small town in Missouri – and yes, it’s pronounced “Missoura,” if you’re from “Missoura.” And they both met at BYU, and they’re like – when I was born, they had been married about 13 years. And they wanted to run a business. And so, they came up here in that year that I won’t mention, because it dates me, to run a hotel, it’s called the Wasatch Motel. And they came – they planned it be like a supplemental thing, but it was something – they wanted to run their own business. And with the economy in the mid-‘70s out in the Uinta Basin, we were going through an oil crisis. So, out in the Uinta Basin, they were doing oil, and they were doing, you know – and so, our motel was always full, because we had, you know, the seismograph people, and we had the oil people. And once the oil crisis ended, and we were buying oil again, our business just went [makes sound]. And my parents had to file for bankruptcy in 1984. And I wouldn’t tell you that if they were alive, because they are proud people, and they worked so hard for what they had. And like the best work ethic – they would go into work sick – because they had a family to provide for. [04:40] And even when the business failed, my dad took two jobs. My mom – I mean, it’s just how my grown up – my life has been. And I thought – when you’re a teenager you’re like, “Oh, my gosh, I can’t wait to get out of here, like oh, my gosh.” And then you go away, and you’re going, “Hehe.” I teased somebody once, “I just need to go buy my burial plot.” And I actually did that a couple of weeks ago; and not to be like – it means I have permanent residency here. MS: Yeah. AD: Before the cemetery gets too overfull: I’ve got my spot next to my parents. MS: My grandma has all of our spots for us [laughs]. It’s like, “This is what I’m buying you.” I’m like, “Thank you?” [Laughs] AD: “Next time I want money. Give me cash, grandma.” MS: I’m like, “Thanks, Grandma; that’s a little morbid, but okay.” [Laughing] But yeah. What was kind of the – I guess this is all you knew growing up – but what was the challenges, maybe, with living here? AD: I would say it wasn’t really a challenge, because this is how I grew up. But if we needed to go school shopping, or – we had a big family of six – if we needed to go grocery shopping, we had to go to Utah County. And also, at the time, when I was a teenager, my sister, my brother, and me – all needed orthodontic work, and so we had to go to Provo. CROSSROADS: CHANGE IN RURAL AMERICA: ALICE DEFRIEZ 3 So, any time we had to go anywhere – there was no Walmart; we had the grocery store Safeway and Day’s (which is now Lee’s), and we had two Seven-Elevens (still blows my mind), and one stop light. And I had a point, and now I don’t remember. MS: What’s changed with all that? AD: Well, the thing is we used to go down the canyon, and it was like a thing. And I remember as a kid spending a lot of time going down Provo Canyon asleep. And I knew when my mom hit the clicker to the car (like the turning signal), I knew it was time that we were supposed to wake up. And another thing I always like when we were out of town, when we went to Salt Lake – right after Jordanelle was built they built the mountain off of Mayflower; so, you got to get that first lovely view into the valley. And it was kind of like that [sighs], “We’re home. It’s cooler up here.” [06:54] And now we’ve got the big box store – which I think brought in a lot of people that wanted to come here because it’s pretty. And it’s made it so – I was driving to Provo yesterday, and every road felt like it was blocked, because they are trying to upgrade the sewer system, they’re trying to do this. But it’s like road rage in rural Utah, and I don’t consider us rural anymore. And I attended a conference for the Association for Rural and Small Libraries (I should get the name right), and we’re like the big library – we’re like the big. Wasatch County is like, “Whew!” I’m like we have one librarian, 200 people, and you’re like [clicks tongue]. So, I guess that’s – it’s just the – I miss, when we were growing up, there was a thing called “dragging Main,” which sounds so ridiculous now. But because the traffic was so mellow, that’s what you did on Friday night: you just did around, round, round, flipped and flipped. I couldn’t drive Main if I wanted to; and now, the road I do take is a back road (a surface road), you know, just on a regular side street; and I swear, that’s going to become the new drag because [makes whistling sound] it’s got one stop light and [whistles] – yeah. [Inaudible speaking in the background between Mia and someone else.] MS: [Laughs] MH: I’m curious what you think it’s going to look like in ten years? AD: [Sighs] You’re going to make me cry. MH: [Inaudible] AD: I’ll tell you a story, and then I’ll tell you what I think about it. First of all, I hate growth. I don’t hate the people, I hate what it brings: more people, more lands – I feel like a John Denver song – more people, more scars upon the land. We don’t have enough water. I’m afraid we’re going to drink recycled water; I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to – we’re going to be like, “You can be on Tuesday, and you can be on Thursday.” I’m just afraid it’s not – It’s not the cute, little town I grew up in. [08:50] CROSSROADS: CHANGE IN RURAL AMERICA: ALICE DEFRIEZ 4 And the other part of that, if you want to do the flipside of it is if you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, there was a faith-promoting rumor (I have no proof of it, but I ‘ve heard it spoken) that Wasatch County was meant to be a gathering place to share our beliefs. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know. But I think it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. And so, from a religious aspect, because that’s why my people came to Utah, is because we wanted to live our religion – if the story is true, when I see growth and I freak out, I’m like, “Okay, this is what – we’re supposed to bring the world here, so we can teach them about Jesus.” So, like I said, whether that’s true or not, but you can’t come to Utah and not learn about us and appreciate – I mean, that’s who we are. You come here for the lifestyle and the low crime, well that’s because of our church and our beliefs, so. MS: And you guys are getting a temple, right? AD: Super stoked about it. I never thought in my lifetime we would have an LDS temple in our area. Provo Temple was 30 minutes away; my parents were there all the time. And when they announced it, I actually got a little sick because in my religious beliefs, I’m like, “Does that mean that the great day is coming, and it’s all time to like get your food storage, and the big guy is coming back?” And so, I’m like, “Okay, we’ve got to start working on this, we’ve got to start,” – So, it’s great, I’m excited to be able to go home from work and just go to the temple, and then go home instead of going to Provo, and then you’ve got to have dinner, and then you’ve got to come home, and then it’s like midnight. So, I think it’s going to be – I’m excited. I’m hoping to find a husband (wink-wink), so we can be the first people married in the Heber Temple. However, they haven’t even put any foundations in. So, you out there, we have a couple of years (wink) [Laughter] MS: I’m from Star Valley – AD: [Gasps] MS: And so, [laughs] – AD: My mom grew up in Star Valley. MS: But that was – my grandma said that; when they were just announcing it, she calls my cousin that wasn’t married and was like, “Do you want me to book you a temple appointment?” AD: [Laughs] [11:11] MS: She’s like, “Why?” She’s like, “For when you get married?” AD: Married. MS: She’s like, “I’m not even dating anybody.” AD: I know [laughs]. MS: She’s like 26. CROSSROADS: CHANGE IN RURAL AMERICA: ALICE DEFRIEZ 5 AD: I’d love to put my wishes – sorry – wishing my wishes out to the – MS: Yeah. AD: The universe. MS: I’m like, “Is it if you build it they will come?” Kind of idea, right? [Laughs] AD: Yeah. MS: Book it, you’ll find a man. AD: I’m a self-proclaimed Wasatch County historian, and I’ve always been interested in it. My dad is from central Utah (in Huntington); so, if you go to Huntington, you see my entire ancestry all buried down there. My mom, like I said, is from Star Valley. And so, the Davis’s, the Leavitt’s, the Putnam’s – that’s all us. And that’s the thing, my parents wanted that small-town lifestyle for their kids; at the time, Heber was the place. And they never regretted it. When the business failed they were like, “No, we’re staying here. We’re going to make our lives work here.” And they did. My dad worked 27 years for the school district, as a bus driver and deliverer; and he also had a night job where he worked night audit at the Homestead. That’s another thing: Homestead, which is iconic resort is not our sweet, little owned by the Whittaker’s little place anymore. I used to work there during college, and it’s lovely. It’s a very nice place to play. And if you have the money, I say go stay there. But it’s not the sweet, little inn that I used to work at, and my dad used to do the night audit at. So, then things change. That’s what happens. There’s people who want to have luxury resorts, someone’s going to build them; you’ve got to make your money somehow. MS: Yeah. AD: I don’t like it. If I had all the money in the world, I would buy up all the open land, and it would just stay open. MS: That leads to our question – AD: Oh! MS: If you were mayor here, what would you do? AD: Oh – MS: Alice – AD: Oh, dear. MS: First order is what? [Laughs] AD: The first order of – I believe the problem we’re having right now with our city council and the mayor is I feel like there’s this butting of heads; it’s like, “We all can’t work together; I’m right, CROSSROADS: CHANGE IN RURAL AMERICA: ALICE DEFRIEZ 6 you’re wrong.” And if I were to start tomorrow, I mean, if it’s 20 years from now, it’s something different. But to just be on the same page with the council, and what the pulse of the town is, and what people need. And I think they’re doing the – I mean, the council is doing the best they can, and the mayor is doing the best they can. But it seems like there’s this big disconnect of mayor, to council, to what the people want. And I think it’s all a learning curve, because do you want to be mayor and just jump in and go, “Okay, all the problems are now yours!” So, she’s doing a great job, but it’s also a hard job. And you know, she has to worry about all the things, even though, for instance, the temple that my church is planning to build is on Wasatch County, not Heber; but Heber gets to hear their opinion: “Well we don’t know; it’s going to make our neighborhoods, blah, blah, blah. It’s going to be more light, more traffic, whatever.” So, they’re having to deal with that, plus growth, plus bringing people in for industry. We can’t get enough kids to work – that sounds really awful, because when I was in school, every kid had a job: fast food. And now, they can’t find anybody who wants to work. That’s why they – is it Panda Express are advertising at $25 and hour? And I’m like, “I’m a librarian, and uh – maybe I should go work at Panda Express?” [14:31] [Laughter] And that’s the other thing is all the restaurants. So, where my house used to be is now – they tore it down – and my dad teased that when they were ready – it wasn’t our business anymore, but when they tore it down to put in a new building, my dad said, “I want to be the first one in there with a sledgehammer.” And so, we went in and took pictures before they demolished it. But it’s now where Utah Community Credit Union is. And it’s 875 South Main, and I bank there. So, there you go: there’s my free plug. MS: [Laughs] AD: But I say to myself, “If my eight-year-old self,” which was a very sensitive, very sensitive – just was aware what was going around in the world. So, if I were to come back my eight-year-old self, first of all I would be like, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” Because your childhood home isn’t there. Your childhood school is not there. Your childhood high school, where your mom used to substitute isn’t there. She wouldn’t recognize Heber Main Street, and she – Her little, sensitive eight-year-old self would probably – not have a meltdown (that wasn’t me), but she would have been really upset, and, “Where’s my mom?” And, “Where’s my house?” And that’s – like I said, I’m glad that there’s not time travel, because I’d go back to see her, but I don’t know that eight-year-old me wants to come back here, because she wouldn’t recognize it. I don’t recognize it. In fact, I do historical research of Wasatch County all the time, and I can’t believe how many buildings that were there are not there. And I go, “What?” And like I said, and I’m sure somebody who grew up here in the ‘50s would be like – it’s like, “I don’t want to talk to my eight-year-old self from 1958, because I wouldn’t be able to find my home. I wouldn’t be able to find my school.” CROSSROADS: CHANGE IN RURAL AMERICA: ALICE DEFRIEZ 7 They tore down my school and put the police station, which was a good move, but it’s my elementary school. [16:23] MS: Yeah. And then how does – I’m trying to phrase this – as you do history work – AD: Um-hmm? MS: In the county, what kind of perspective does that give you? Does it just make you sadder? [Laughs] AD: No, it should. The thing I love about doing the research – I do a program called “Wasatch Wednesday,” and it kind of started out as a marketing tool, where we like – you know, “Come befriend us on Facebook, and then you can come to story time,” and whatever. What it does is we have – I think what our ancestors would say is, “What?” I’m not so certain it would be a “what” like condemning, but it would be like – I just, I think that they would come back and be like, “Really?” And not really in a bad way, but they would just be so dumbfounded that this was how their little town happened. And the research I do, and what people like the most is the biographies: so, telling people’s stories of their life. And every time I tell a story about a person – and see, my mom grew up in Star Valley, my dad grew up in Huntington, but these are my people. I really feel like, even though I don’t know them that they’re my people, and I’m here to tell their story. But in their biographies, they talk about – there’s one lady Christine Carlisle, who had a big like softball size – they call it a goiter, on her neck. And she just – it kept getting bigger, and bigger, and here it’s the early 1900s, and got bigger and bigger. And she just kind of lived out her life, and she had hurt her neck – You look at pictures and I’m like, “What is wrong with this photography?” And she’s got it all covered up. And then she talks about how she was told to be healed by one of her priesthood leaders in her church, that she was going to be healed. And that goiter went away. And I think whether it’s from, “Okay, that’s just coincidence.” That’s fine. If you think of it is like spiritual or religious that she received answers to her prayers. But her life – she did hard things, and this is what I have to keep remembering is she did hard things, I can do hard things. And they did it without electricity [inaudible]. And it’s really my comfort, when I come down to it, because every life: every person has a story. I’m amazed that like you’ve never heard of such and such. [18:50] I’m childless, probably not going to have children of my own, because I’m at that age. And I went through a story of Ella Danielson, just because it was a story about her 90th birthday. And it came out that her and her husband (John, I believe was his name) never had children. And in his journal, he said something, “I don’t know why the Lord has asked us not to do this, but we are going to be the best aunts and uncles ever.” And that gave me such comfort that these people, these good, hardworking, religious, god-fearing people who would have been great parents, were not given that opportunity. And I thought, CROSSROADS: CHANGE IN RURAL AMERICA: ALICE DEFRIEZ 8 “Okay, so I’m in good company. I’ll just be the greatest aunt, and the greatest Miss Alice at Lego club that I can be.” So, like I said, they did hard things, they made it through. I can do hard things. MS: Were they a couple that you researched that were in – AD: Yeah, I’d never met them before in my life. I found out they grew up in my ward boundaries (my church ward boundaries). And like I said, she died like in the late ‘80s, when I was still oblivious about the world. And just – that’s the thing about history: our local paper, The Wasatch Wave has been in print since 1889 – why do I know that number? I just do. And going back, doing research – it is the Facebook of the 1900s. It’s like, “Johnny and so and so visited their daughter,” – MS: [Laughing] AD: “In whatever, and they went to – they had so and so over for dinner.” It’s just the cutest darn thing ever, because you’re like, “We do that on social media; we just have pictures.” MS: Yeah. AD: And it doesn’t come out once a week. So, a lot of things I’m amazed what I can find. I’m so grateful that somebody wrote their stuff down, wrote their story. And I tell people – and this is probably my forum – I tell my people who read “Wasatch Wednesday” is like, “Find grandma, find grandpa; find aunt/uncle. You all have phones that record. Get their story.” And especially, I’m from a military background, my dad is a Vet, my brother is a Vet – I want to hear those Vietnam stories. I know they’re hard, I know they’re painful; but there are some great people in this community who gave all. And the Vietnam people who were never welcomed home – and I think they need to tell their story. Everyone needs to tell their story. But like I said, if we can get those Vets in there and tell their story, because they don’t want to talk about it, and I absolutely get it. But I think they would – we could learn from them, because we’re like, “We have no idea what it’s like running through the jungle, shooting people we didn’t even dislike, we’re just told to do it.” [21:36] So, anyways – that would be my – write down your story. Because my parents, I have their stories, but I wish I had my dad sitting around telling me, “When I was such and such.” He told us stuff, but we never like wrote it down. And there’s nothing – when I do family history search, and do research – when somebody has recorded a great aunt so and so talking about like, “This is my pie recipe,” it’s the cutest, darn thing ever. And I don’t know this person from anything, but they grew up here, and they’re from here, and they’re buried here. So, they’re like, “You’re my people!” MS: Wonderful. AD: Anyways, you’re like – MS: You’re good; – AD: Talk. CROSSROADS: CHANGE IN RURAL AMERICA: ALICE DEFRIEZ 9 MS: This is what we want. AD: Talk all night. MS: We do have one more coming in at four? AD: Talk faster? MS: So, yeah – we did a lot of these; is there anything – AD: I know, you’re like, “whoa!” MS: No, don’t; it’s a sense of loss, it’s poignant. AD: Yeah. MS: Yeah, is there anything about this community, or experience in this community that we haven’t really touched on, that you wanted to bring up? Or I’m also curious how you became a librarian – is that out of ability, or? AD: No, I am an actual librarian, as it’s used in the business, in the industry. I have a degree in paralegal studies, with an emphasis in business management from UVU. And I have participated – my sister is an attorney (senior class president, 1984), and she’s passed away now, too. And so, that was – I’ll just sidebar on that: the class of 1984 bought her the sweetest funeral spray. And just, that’s who we are, is you know, she lived in Oregon, had her law practice in Oregon. And people from Heber City are like, “We know Tony Defriez Skinner.” [23:30] So, how I became a librarian was I was substituting, I needed a job. My parents were aging, and so I kind of – they liked me living with them, I liked living with them – it kind of just worked. They were good roommates: they were clean, they’re quiet, they didn’t bring their weird friends over late at night. MS: [Laughing] AD: And my dad’s health was failing, and so there was a job for a part-time librarian; and I’m like, “I like books, I like kids.” And then it started part-time, became full-time, and then it turned into the marketing person. And then it’s turned into what I do now, which is like marketing, and research, and historical archiving, and Lego club, and Tween Scene. But the best librarians that I have met, honestly, in conferences that I go to are those accidental librarians, who this was not their life path. So, there’s my story. MS: Librarian plug. AD: Yeah. [End recording – 24:24] CROSSROADS: CHANGE IN RURAL AMERICA: ALICE DEFRIEZ 10