Pat Fenton interview interviewer: Doris Woodliff 13 May 1998

side one

DW :Today is May 13, 1998. I am Doris Woodluff and I am talking to Pat Fenton. Okay, Pat we are gonna start off with who your father and mother. Are. Were.

Pat: Okay, my Momma is. My dad was, Steve Steven Fenton. His father was Irving Fenton and I do want to throw that in. Momma is Teddy Fenton, Virginia Fenton. Momma is the towns historian. Honorably, she would hasten to add. Proclaimed by City Council back in 1980. My Dad and my Grandfather, both worked on the dam, starting in 1931. And Granddad actually continued on at the dam, and retired in 1950, from that job.

DW: So, where did they come from?

Pat: They came, lets see, Dad was born in Texas, they moved, they migrated from there up to North Dakota, over to Montana, over to the state of Washington, they were doing fairly well when the great depression hit in 1929 and Dad found himself riding the rails at that point. Everything went to hell in a hand basket. His wife died, in, not in child birth, but when the little girl was a year old, the whole family was depressed, at any rate. Mom was born in North Dakota, and she was an orphan. And at the age of thirteen she found herself taken in by my Dads aunt, great aunt May, Granddads sister. So, for the age of thirteen on, Mother really was already a Fenton. Now, the way that they got together then, Dad and Granddad were living in McKeeversville, Granny was still alive. Granny was a homemaker and Mom was back in Williston and there was a cousin involved named Johnny Sykes and Johnny Sykes was a boxer. He was actually world class boxer, he fought Slapsy Maxie Rosenblum (sp?) for the title. Twice. Got soundly whipped both times, in the meantime, Johnny had had to get married back in Williston, North Dakota. Let his wife and two babies back there. So in 1936 the grand plan was to send Mom out on the Great Northern Railroad, where great aunt

May worked for the Great Northern Railroad. And Mom was to accompany Ilow and Johnnys two kids out so there could be a family reunion. Momma was going to stay for a couple of months, April of 1936, and come back to Williston. Momma fell in love, with Boulder City, April of 1936. She ended up marring my Dad, not so much because she wanted to marry him, but because my March of 1937, she job at the rootbeer stand was gone and she wouldnt be a waitress and she was going around doing hired girl work for everybody. Aunt Mae, in the meantime, back in North Dakota, wondering when she is going to come back to Williston. And so, Mother sorta out of desperation, and respect and fear, married my Father in March of 1937. The day that his divorce became filed from his second wife, but we could spend hours talking nothing but this. It is really, my ancestral background, I am sure everybodys is fascinating, but I think mine might have just a little more edge to it than a lot. My Father died in November of 1953, from an accidental gunshot wound. He, at the time of his death, was a legendary game warden. In the state, had been for several years. And, lets see, where do I want to go from there? Oh, lets go back to when they got married. So, they got married March 2, 1937 and I was born on December 5 th, nine months and three days later, with all the old women counting the days and mother has recently confessed to me that she was counting the days, as well. [laughing] Now, I was born in a tent in McKeeversville, and they already, Mom and Dad already lived up in Boulder City, theyd been able to get a house. Aw, Granddad and Grandmother got their house, and theres was up on Denver Street. Which, the hodie todie section of town, in early 1938, but my Grandmother was a mid-wife, among other of her talents. So, when Momma went into labor in Boulder City, Dad took her down to his Mom, to Grandma, to the tent, and Grandmother, you know, Mother went into labor sometime late the evening of December the fourth, and I was finally born at 8:30 A. M. On the morning of December the fifth, and the last couple of hours there was a doctor at attendance. But, I want to say McDaniels, was his name, but I would not swear to that.

DW: So, then you grew up in Boulder City.

Pat: I grew up in Boulder City proper. Because, you know they kept women in bed for ten days at that time?

DW: Yes, yes, yes.

Pat: Mom said it was all she could do was move, when she was finally let out of bed. And if she were here sharing, Granny washed her down with lysol to make sure there would be no infection, which was, thats apparently one of the things that they did.

DW: Oh, my goodness.

Pat: Can you imagine? Oh [laughing] So, they took me home and the house was at 642 Avenue F, and following me twenty, twenty-one months later was my sister Donna, and then a couple of years after that came David, then came Steve, and then in 1950 Mom gave birth to her last child, my brother Richie.

DW: Oh, I didnt realize that many.

Pat: There were five of us. At that time, but not for the first couple years after I was born. One of the things that happened, Dad found out in the desert, a little desert fox dead, who had just had kits. So Dad brought home a baby fox, which was my dog. My pet and

DW: How old were you at the time?

Pat: Two.

DW: Two, okay.

Pat: It would keep me in the front yard. They would put the, I called it my goo__ (?) and they would stick me out in the front yard, and the fox was out there, the fox was on a chain, but the fox would keep me from running away. Now the problem with the fox, Momma finally made Dad take it back out to the desert. She could never get the fox house trained and the foxes favorite place to go to the bathroom was in their bed.

DW: Oh, wonderful [laughing]

Pat: We have pictures of that little fox kicking around. So then, going to school in Boulder City.

DW: Lets go back just a little bit. Do you remember your first memory? You said you were two with the little fox, do you remember that?

Pat: I dont know whether I remember it, or whether I had been told the story and seen the pictures. I dont know if its, I dont know anymore, if its a real memory or

DW: I see, cause the pictures will make you think it is a memory.

Pat: Exactly. Exactly, no my earliest real memory is of crawling inside a cardboard box out in the back yard, where I could suck my thumb and nobody would bother me. [laughing] That is my first, and thats definitely my memory and I remember crawling across a linoleum floor and, because it was kinda, it was, I was very aware of it on my knees. That I am aware of.

DW: Right, right. But, this would be on F Avenue?

Pat: Yes, on Avenue F, 642. 647 Avenue F.

DW: Now, did you have grass? You said you recall.

Pat: Mother tried grass. And the grass was, I mean, who ever heard of fertilizer? So, the grass was sort of hit and miss. We didnt have a desert and I remember also, I remember the picketed fence.

DW: Okay. All around the house?

Pat: Yeah, what we started, just around, not the whole house, the front yard.

DW: Do you remember the inside of the house? You said the linoleum. Do you remember?

Pat: Just vaguely. But, you understand, I married very young and I ended up living in one of those houses on F Street myself. Course, I called it F Street, it is Avenue F. And once more, I dont know how much of that memory is, is, you know, I dont know exactly.

DW: You were going to talk about school.

Pat: Yes. We went to school, I got started in school in 1941. I was, I should have graduated in 1955, I didnt graduate until 1956, because I had snuck off and gotten married, ended up getting myself pregnant then. Damn it. And I was out of school for a year. Part of the reason for the first divorce was they didnt think, they thought I was smart enough already, I didnt need to finish high school. So, and I said ho, ho, ho, ho, ho I dont know what is going to happen with this situation because [she whispers something which I cant hear] At any rate, where I started school is where City Hall is now. DW: Okay.

Pat: And I went to kindergarten where you go to pay your utility bill. [laughing by DW] I dont know what. Then they had the first grade was at that end of the building, clear down at the other corner on the bottom floor, was second grades. Third grade was straight across, in another room, across from where you pay your utility bills. And fourth grade, we were, I think we were out, in fact I know we were, we were out growing everything. By then. So they brought in these temporary buildings and had them set, off to the edge, its a parking structure now. And thats, we had the fourth grade in, I think they were old government, old dormitories buildings. Fourth grade. Fifth grade, our class, was up at the National Park Service Building. Which was also wooden dormitories, its up on Nevada Highway and Wyoming. And that was old dormitory buildings. Sixth grade, we were back at the building that is now City Hall. Only

we were upstairs and down at the other corner then, Bill McCormick was my sixth grade teacher and I say that only because whenever I happen to find myself going to counsel, I sit and I giggle. Because counsel chambers are located where I had my sixth grade class. From Bill McCormick. The high school that still serves, I mean, we are gonna go back and touch more on school, but the high school that was still serving Boulder City, my class entered it in the seventh grade and we were the first class to go all the way through seventh through twelfth in that particular building.

DW: You were the first person on that.

Pat: Yeah, yeah, well, except, as I say, I dropped out of school for a year, so I didnt graduate until 1956. Now, back in to school. We had Mrs. Toniskin (sp?), was my third grade teacher and she got me interested in math, she got me interested in learning how to tell time, she fired up my whole quest for knowledge. Which goes on to this day, I would hope that everybody, I would hope that all of us have at least one teacher out of the past that does that for us. So, by the time we got into fourth grade, and ran into Mrs. Zuzac (sp?), um, I was prepared simply to ignore her and have no respect for her. Mrs. Zuzac, however, just for the record, Roy Jensen, who is now dead, sat she disallowed him to go to the bathroom, although he had to go to the bathroom, the third time he raised his hand three times, and the third time he raised his hand and she said no, you have to wait til either recess or break. Turned and looked at him and tears were running down his face and there was a pile of pee all around the bottom of his chair. And I was, and continue to be mortified, poor boy. Polly Ann Cunningham, fellow classmate of mine, Roy died in a plane crash a couple of years ago. Polly Ann Cunningham died of cancer, in oh Lord, the early 80s, a long time ago. But, she was taken out of school and was out of school a whole year, as a result of Mrs. Zuzacs meanness. All Mrs. Zuzac ever did to me was to expel me, for chewing gum. And what I did was being expelled for chewing gum, was to go to the library. And, Lord knows that I couldnt go home and tell Momma that I had been expelled. This would have been, and it was my fault, and Mrs. Zuzac told me not to chew my gum and I was good for five minutes, then I am sure my jaws were going a million miles an hour by the time her, thats it, youre expelled. So, I went to the library, then I pondered a long time, a fourth grader, pondered. Does this mean that I never get to go back to school again? What will I do with my time? And I decided, on my own, that I would pretend that nothing had happened and show up at school the next day. Thats what I did. In the meantime, though, the library, growing up in Boulder City. The Library was for me a sanctuary. My Dad

and my Granddad taught me to read, when I was three and spent a lot of time with me. I got a lot of love, a lot of attention, a lot of validation, Im told that I am an absolutely brilliant child. So, by the time I started kindergarten, I was reading fluently. And, what I would do, the Library in town was open from two oclock to five oclock, closed then from five to seven, then open from seven to nine. So, when school would get out, I would go to the library.

DW: And where was the Library located?

Pat: Thank you for asking! Where the building was the senior center is now, on the, lets see, on the west side of the building. You would go down, there was one flight of stairs down. It was small, there were three sorta longish rooms. A center room, two rooms off to the side. No windows, so it was always dark in there. And the walls were just totally lined with books and they ran age wise. Age wise. And Ruby Wyman was the librarian. I think Ruby Wyman, Ruby Wyman was old, I mean I dont know whether she was old old, but she was like, she seemed to me to be seventy years old, from the time I was four up until I had anything to do with, with Mrs. Wyman. And she maintained this strict silence in the library and it was a shh, shh. I would like to be able to say that I had a librarian, who saw my interest in reading, saw my interest in books, saw my interest in knowledge and tried to guide me. That is not what I can say. I had a librarian who acted like, how dare you come in here, with everybody, not just me. And I was always just half afraid of her. But, the library had the stuff that I figured that I needed. So, my particular reading was, although, now this is me in Boulder City and I wanted to be more general. I simply read everything in the library. I read every book and by the time I was in the fifth grade I was up to science fiction in the adult section, yeah. I was kind of bored in school. As it was, I would have already gone beyond most everything that they had to teach.

DW: So, you self-taught yourself?

Pat: Yeah, yeah, its still the case. Still the case. One of the wonders of growing up in Boulder City. I was a speed demon. Roller skates and bicycles. And I had a hard time sleeping as a child. I find myself awake at three A. M. And there were many nights, at three A. M. when I would just get up, get dressed, and go out, hop on my bicycle and ride around the streets of Boulder City and never give it a moments thought.

DW: Because it was safe.

Pat: It was so safe, it was quiet, it was pin-down quiet. It was, you know, you had the sky above and everybody was in bed and there was never any cars out. And I never ran into anybody. I just ride for about an hour, and go home and go back to bed, and go to sleep and sleep the rest of the night. Roller skates. We had, Doris I dont know how old you are. This, when I first saw the lace-up skates, I just thought, my God, what is that? And I still, I look at them and I, you know, you dont need those. We had the roller skate keys and the little crankers, and your problem to get those little, to get the little roller skate key and the crankers crankers just right, not too loose or they would come off. Too tight and they would cut in. And they way that all my shoes bit the dust was, from the roller skates. The roller skates clamps coming down on the shoe.

DW: Did you wear the key around your neck on a string?

Pat: Always. Of course. DW: Plain ole grocery string. [laughing]

Pat: Is there any of way? Is there any other way? So, and we could start up at the Administration Building on top of the hill and I would walk down those stairs in my skates. Then you come down to the smaller park, the Government park, whatever they call it now. And you had your choice of going down either one of those sidewalks and I generally took the one to the right, cause then you could roll across the street, it was all down hill.

DW: Right.

Pat: You could pick up this incredible speed. And, so, sqooshing by, where Central Market, Central Market wasnt where it is today, then, but down that side, down by Grace Community Church and your first real obstacle was whether you could make the turn, there on Wyoming, in front of, in front of Grace Community Church. Or whether you were

going to lose it and screw your knees up. A lot of scars on these knees.

DW: [laughing] But, going

Pat: There was not enough, there was not traffic in town was slow enough, people were so aware, I guess of kids, I mean, the town was ours. If a car was coming down the road, I never thought about altering my course at all, it was the cars job to stop. And thank god they always did.

DW: So, you are talking about, oh somewhere around the 40s. Pat: The mid 40s.

DW: Did most children have bicycles then?

Pat: Yes. We were in an economically, there were not rich people in town, there were not super poor people in town, it was, it was a government community and you thought, as everybody basically having the same, having the same thing. All the kids had bicycles, all the kids had skates, by the time we got into high school in the early 50s, economically people had started to sorta move. But, yeah, it was pure white bread. Everybody was in the same boat, not, not, understand, I was raised during second world war, too. In part. And I think that had. But, I saw in this town, in the second world war, Mother would stand us up town, with the ration stamps, to stand in line, at the meat market, Manixs Meat Market. And the only meat that we bought was hamburger. We traded off most of our ration stamps for other stuff. I would be standing there in line, with my ration stamps, and other people, nice suited gentlemen, would walk in, would not stand in line, would go up to the corner, and piles of racked meat would be coming their way.

DW: So, there were some privileges.

Pat: Oh, oh, oh. One of my first moments of total fury. You know, the recognition of the way the world is. You can, I dont know in life, you can decide that you are going to be one of the privileged ones. Or you can, there is all kinds of

stuff you can do with that information. But, it did happen here in Boulder City. Across the street from us, Don Atkins lived, the Don Atkins family, their son, Roy was one of favorite playmates and his sister, Sharon, a few years older. She was always kind of snooty. But, anyway, Don Atkins was the deacon of the Mormon Church. And the Mormon Church, you are supposed to hoard. You know, thats what you do. So, the church is saying hoard, the Government is saying, no, no, no you cant hoard. So, one fine day here came Government agents, and I dont know which section of the Government they were from and hauled Don Atkins off to jail, after they had checked his garage and discovered hundreds of pounds of sugar, and tires. Those were the two things that he had, his garage was just stuffed with it. And I dont even know how much time he did in jail. I mean, he might have simply been, you know, gone and come back that __ same day, for all I know. I just remember the, Id never seen anybody taken to jail, thank God, as I sit here, I still havent, other than Don Atkins deacon of the Mormon church in the second world war.

DW: When you say jail, was there one here in Boulder City?

Pat: Oh yeah. Under the police, well, the, the basement of the, lets see, the building that is now the Senior Center, and that building comes on back, where the library was down stairs, the other side of the downstairs portion of that building, was the police department and there were at least two jail cells there.

DW: Sounds like Mayberry.

Pat: Oh honey, oh honey. Upstairs was the post office.

DW: Okay, so it was all right there. Pat: It was all right there.

DW: So, you saw somebody hauled away? But, during the war then, you said rationing. How much did that effect people, as far as gas, for example? Because people

Pat: I dont know, Dad had to have his car because, well, no he didnt become a game warden until forty-seven. You know, I dont know, but then I was a kid, you know, I never was, there was no problem with gas, since he brought home, he never had a problem with gas. He was a hunter before he was a, the reason that they hired him to be a game warden was because the was biggest time poacher.

DW: [laughing]

Pat: That, there ever had been, so, so the powers that be, they knew if they could get him to hop the fence, and yet, then he arrested guys. He told them that they should know better. He said, you know I taught you that, I taught you how to hide those quail. Im the game warden now, boys. You know, you have to come up with a new hiding place.

DW: [laughing] Oh, that is great.

Pat: At any rate, he, when I was a kid, well, the whole time up until his death, he brought home game. There was always verison, the last few years there was burro. Burro meat, which, and Momma knows how to cook wild game, honey. DW: How where

Pat: And rabbits. Jack rabbits.

DW: Oh, where did he go hunting, then? Where the version, not around this area.

Pat: For the most part, in the northern part of the state.

DW: I was going to say, yes, you would have to go away from here.

Pat: Yeah, my Dads job, from the time he was eight years old, was to put meat on the familys table. And he, at the

time he turned eight, they were living on a homestead in North Dakota, backed up against Fort Bragg, which is a huge Indian Reservation out there. Flat, prairie land, absolutely desolate. And, in that terrain, he was out with his gun and brought home geese and what not. But, now that I think about it, they, no they didnt eat buffalo. The buffalo had already been pretty blown into extinction by then.

DW: Is it by them, early forties, or so, werent there less than a hundred of buffalo, I believe at the time?

Pat: Yeah. I am hopping back and forth, though, I am back in the twenties.

DW: Yes, yes, lets so back to school. Pat: So, bringing it up here, the rationing thing. Mom would trade our meat stamps for shoe stamps, cause she had, at that time, she had four kids that she had to put shoes on. And, I think she traded off some of the gas rations stamps, too, I dont think that we used all of them. And I would have to think back to how, to where it was Dad worked in Henderson for Titanium, for a time and he may have been riding a bus or something, back and forth to work.

DW: Now, at that time, you said were at five children and the houses were small then, how, did you

Pat: Oh, my this time we had moved.

DW: Oh. Okay.

Pat: In 1942. We moved to the house on Avenue F. 663 Avenue D.

DW: So, you had enough room there? Because, often back in those time, you know, there was one room, everyone

Pat: I have no memory of where we slept. Or how we slept. By the time I got to be twelve years old, there was a time in our home, there were three bedrooms and one of them was mine, and one of them was my Dads and the other one

was shared by my Mom and the other four children. And how that came about, I guess I was, lets see, shall we say spoiled?

DW: [laughing]

Pat: Demanding?

DW: Im not saying that you are. [laughing]

Pat: Mother would be able to list all kinds of things. I had my, my desires had been indulged to the extent that they could be.

DW: First child, too.

Pat: Indulged, first child.

DW: Yes, and you said you were bright. A lot of time spent with you, so that often happens with first children. First children are very speical.

Pat: When we moved into the house on Avenue D, I am hopping back and forth between F and D myself. That house was raised in 1946, this is something that Momma should probably be addressing, rather than me. And had apartments built under it.

DW: Okay, okay.

Pat: And, there were ladders for a time. We crawled upstairs, I mean, it was jacked up, slowly but surely and we never, we never didnt live in it. And the winds would come up and the house would go to back and forth and I remember.

DW: Swinging?

Pat: I remember, yeah, I remember that age, I would have been nine then. I remember the house __, this is, this is really, naw, the house couldnt fall down, they wouldnt let us sleep up here if the house. Turns out that the house was in danger, for a little bit, for a couple of weeks. Until everything got stabilized underneath it.

DW: Now did your Father or Grandfather do the, the excavating? Or did

Pat: It was hired done. Dad designed, he designed the architectural layout. And he was an electrician. He learned how to be an electrician on the dam and he had an electricians shop in town for a time.

DW: Oh really.

Pat: Forty-two and forty-three, if I remember right. So, he did all the electrician wiring and he supervised. He had helped Murl, Murl Emery build a home, so I know that he got into some of the, you know, some of the construction work, as well, but for the most part, it was, they had a full scale crew come in. And build it.

DW: Okay, lets go back to school now. Do you remember kindergarten in particular?

Pat: I remember where it was, I remember that, I remember the sunshine coming through, because there was a whole wall of windows, and the room was bathed in sunlight. And part of why that, part of why that really appealed to me, being in that room, was because there were no windows in the library.

DW: Yes, because it was dark down there.

Pat: Yeah, yeah, and the windows faced the east. In kindergarten, so it was just washed with

DW: Washed with sunlight?

Pat: Yeah. And I remember not liking being around other children.

DW: You said you were a loner earlier, so did you have any friends that you really did like?

Pat: I made a friend and we stayed really close until our teens, Glenda Burt. Roy and Lucille Burts youngest daughter, they had two daughters. Donna Mae and Glenda. And Glenda and I were basically, I say I was a loner, but at the same time Glenda and I were inseparable. Weekends, I would go to their house, to play.

DW: You said that you read a lot. What others, and you rode bicycles in the middle of the night and roller skated. What are some of the other things that you did?

Pat: Boulder City, at that time, and God love the Red Cross, had a swimming program in the summer and I was trying to remember how long this swimming program lasted. I want to say it was two months, eight weeks. Maybe ten, but I dont think so. And, the swimming was down at the lake, I mean, there was no swimming pool in town. And, you would get on the bus, go uptown and get on the bus. It seems to me that there was just one bus, but there were more kids than that, so there must have been more than one bus. And they would take us down to the lake and it was a Red Cross sponsored program, I have no idea if there was any cost involved, at all. Momma always managed to come up whatever money was needed, you know, for whatever. Was presented and the way the Red Cross taught the swimming, you would have one older person for maybe twenty younger people. Except for the tadpoles, the tadpoles, which is the first, the very first. The Tadpoles were the first, the first year, just getting started. Then you became a frog, so at the time you became a frog, the first thing that all the frogs had to do, was to teach the tadpoles what they had learned the preceding year. And it is one of the most marvelous teaching methods, where youve got the kids teaching the kids and I have forgotten, but it seems to be it was a four year program. And Ive forgotten what the name, I was racking my brain trying to remember what the third year was called and the fourth year was called life guard. And by

the time you were sixteen, you could get, you could be a qualified life guard, through the Red Cross. And it was a magnificent summer program, youd be down at the lake, early in the morning and come home, oh along noon. If that, you know, it varied, long periods of time down there and at the end of the summer, for graduation, somebody probably Central Market, but I was a kid, so who knows where these things come from. There were watermelons, and we would a watermelon feast down on the beach. You could have as much watermelon as you wanted. And it was just, Lord, we would sing songs on the bus on the way down and songs on the bus on the way back and it was wonderful and the lake was glorious and the glorious. They had, I dont know if they still do, no in fact, I know they dont. They had whole section of that beach roped off. And roped off, then roped off again in the middle. And there were little rafts, and what we called little rafts and big rafts. And the big rafts were out in the deep water. And then, the kids that werent good at swimming, had, they couldnt go beyond the first set of ropes. It was, it was delightful.

DW: And how long did this run? I mean, weeks in the summer, do you remember?

Pat: I want to say eight. It could have been six, I, you know, it seems to me that it took up most of the summer.

DW: And it would have been very hot at that time.

Pat: Oh Lord, yes. Yes, being at the lake was just the perfect place to be. If you, it seems to me that the classes ran Monday through Friday, you know, just like school. And, of course, Momma signed us up for it. What a way to get rid of your kids. [laughing]

DW: Well, they didnt have sun block. Did you get burnt?

Pat: No. Oh yeah, of course you got sun burnt. And you would come home and you would take apple cider vinegar on a wash rag and slap yourself all over with this apple cider vinegar and that takes the sting out. You got burned and didnt think a thing about it. On the other hand, when you talk about sun block and sun damage and all that kind of stuff, I know people, one of the guys that lives with us, is, Pete is going to be eighty-five years old in July. He has been

renting from the Fentons since 1972.

DW: Oh really?

Pat: Pete spends a minimum of an hour, and sometimes as much as two or three hours, a day in the sun, as close to nude as possible. He is totally bronzed. As I say, he is going to be eighty-five years old in July. His health regime has to do with making sure that he gets that sunshine, because Pete is one of a scant, a half dozen people that I know, that understands that if you believe the sun is going to damage you, the sun will damage you. That so much of this business about sun block, of course, now this has nothing to do with engery __, so much of the information that we are fed is so, I will use the word incorrect. Anyway.

DW: Well, we hear so many different things from one week to the next.

Pat: Dont ya love it? [laughing] Ten years ago you couldnt eat eggs. Coffee. Coffee. Now coffee is all the sudden they realize of its medicinal, well, Ive written, part of that is in the little book I have written.

DW: Well, you go back, we are talking back about the forties, thirties, nobody even talked about any kind of special food. Pat: Right.

DW: And we ate, we were glad to have food on the plate, actually.

Pat: Thats it, amen.

DW: And lard was used.

Pat: Oh honey, thats thats, Granny did pies, Momma never let very many sweets in the house. And, and she would

make meat stretch, I mean, you know, we were not raised, well we just came out of the depression, for Gods sakes. Your parents, too, I should imagine.

DW: Thats right. Yes.

Pat: I am a depression baby, or a little bit of a post-depression baby. But they had been through it, Momma still lives in a world of scarcity, where everything gets stretched. And Im, I find myself horrified when I look at people, younger than me who are so fast to throw stuff out. Just, all stuff. And so fast to go out and buy stuff. Stuff they dont need. And, so the whole world has become a garbage pit, because you got to throw away what you got last week, because, dont you see, that they came out with a newer, better one this week. And it just, it makes you want to tear your hair.

DW: Well, Pat, do you recall, too, if you had a toaster that, at that time, you always had it repaired. Pat: My dear, the stove that we cook on at 633 Avenue D, it now needs to be repaired. Im figuring out that it is at least thirty-five years old, and we will not replace it. We will get it repaired, unless they cant find the part and then we will cry bitterly. But this is my, you know, in my life, I drive a 1978 car. My cars last me.

DW: Thats right. I think thats a big factor of this period we are talking about. After the post depression years.

Pat: And then the war.

DW: Yes, in growing up in the era, it never leaves you. You always, people of our age group now, they just say, you dont go out and

Pat: Its not anything, yeah, its not that we cant. I take a, I take a pride in preserving. In re-using, in, yes, in making things last. Some of my favorite clothes are ten, twelve years old. But I dont buy for style and I dont buy for, for trend and I take pride in that.

DW: Now, do you remember back, say, we are talking about post depression and also the war years. Do you remember things like this, that you can remember? Like, with, what your Mother did? For example, did she save string, for example?

Pat: That she still does. Aluminum foil.

DW: Aluminum foil.

Pat: I remember, oh, oh, this is great fun. I remember and Ill bet you do, too. Beating the color into the new __.

DW: Oh, of course.

Pat: Yeah, that was one of my jobs. Beating the color into the new__

DW: and it tasted so awful.

Pat: Oh, it was. It was horrid. It was horrid.

DW: It was all you could get.

Pat: It was all there was.

DW: Thats right, butter wasnt available at that point.

Pat: I remember the day Franklin Delano Roosevelt died. I remember coming in and we all gathered around the radio and it was one of those, oh Lord, cathedral __, oh God, six inch, carved pretty, sitting around, 1945 and Mother was just beside herself. And, I think we picked up, in part, on her hysteria, but it was just sitting around the radio, listening

to every word. Good grief, well, I was eight years old and I, that day is carved, because FDR had died. And well, and for me, in my life, FDR was the president, every year the Dodgers and the Yankees played, and I would not understand why there was ever a Worlds Series, because the Dodgers and the Yankees played every year and the Yankees won. That was, you know, from my point of view, why bother. There were constants. So, FDR dying was the first time that the security was shaken.

DW: Now, you are talking about the radio, did you, as a family sit around the radio. This was, of course, before TV. Did you as a family sit around and listen to the radio together?

Pat: No, no, but on Sunday afternoons, I went over to the Burts house, because the Burts did sit around and listen to the radio on Sunday afternoons. So, that is where I would go and listen to the radio. My Dad, by that time, for as long as I can remember, was partially deaf. And sounds hurt his ears.

DW: We are almost at the end, of this side. But, we will, go ahead and finish the story.

Pat: So, we, we had to maintain quiet in the house. And I dont remember him ever listening to the radio. So, when Dad was home, the radio was not played. When Dad was home, I didnt practice the piano. When Dad was home, we were supposed to be quiet.

DW: I just want to see how much tape we have here. Just a little left. I just wrote down here about piano. Did you take piano lessons?

Pat: Oh, honey, Madeline Garrett. I had the great fortune to claim Madeline Garrett as now, my first teacher, I shouldnt even, was Agara (?) Handict (?). Well, I was very young, six, maybe seven. Agara Handict during my first and second lesson actually struck my hand with a ruler.

DW: Oh really?

Pat: Yeah. Lightly, but struck my hand with a ruler. As I was at the piano. It was the first time I ever really stood up for myself. I just, quite literally stood up and I looked at her and I said, you cant teach me to play and I went home and I told Momma, I wont take piano lessons from her.

DW: Did you, you must have had a piano in your home then?

Pat: Mother got us a piano and it was an old converted player piano. And it had one of the best tones of any piano still has, I mean, I have gone through three or four pianos now. But, that old, if I could have the old player piano back. Oh! Honey, let me have that old player piano back.

DW: Now, did all of you, did all of you children take it, or just you?

Pat: They tried. But, they didnt have the talent. When Madeline Garrett quit giving private piano lessons, except for two of her students, and Evelyn Ann Hamm was one of them, and I was the other. Yeah, because, yeah, I could have been a contender.

DW: How much was, how much did it cost to take piano lessons? Pat: A dollar.

DW: I thought, the reason I asked that, is because, now, you know, to take a music, music instruction privately is so, so much.

Pat: Well, when I was teaching, I was charging ten dollars, but I didnt, it wasnt an hour, it was a lesson. Because, you dont, you dont stop a lesson, a lesson might run an hour and a half and it might run forty-five minutes.

DW: So, you have been a piano teacher?

Pat: Yes, I ended up teaching, too.

DW: Oh good, well, lets change this over here.

side two

DW: I am Doris Woodliff and I am talking to Pat Fenton. Lets pick up to something on your notes now, Pat.

Pat: Yes, I wanted to mention hiking in the desert. And I dont want to say all that much about hiking in the desert, except that was one of our, you had wanted to know earlier, what was our entertainment. DW: Right

Pat: Going out and hiking in the desert and there really isnt any more to say about it, other than we could and it there and it was wonderful. There is something very special about the desert. Other entertainment that we had, when I was a kid, ah Momma always had enough money so that we got a quarter on Sunday afternoon and you will recognize this one, too. To go to the matinee, and in Boulder City, at that time, it costs fourteen cents to get into the theatre and you eleven cents left over to buy refreshments with. And you could get yourself a soda, for five cents and then you had six cents to get a, oh good grief, two kinds of candy, anyway. So, the major decision was, did you get candy that would last a long time, or candy that would taste real good and go down real fast and it was always a very difficult decision to make.

DW: Do you remember any of the candy bars from the era?

Pat: Oh Henry, was one of them. Abbadabba bars. They were lasters. Abbadabba bars were sorta like a taffy and they had a yellow and a black one of my favorites, they had a yellow and black cover on them and they were taffy with sorta like a peanut butter flavor on the inside.

DW: Oh, that is a new one.

Pat: And they were good, but I was smaller then, so maybe the bar wasnt that big, but the candy bars keep progressively getting smaller, and they were, as they get more expensive. And the Abbadabba bar would last you, of good grief, a good forty minutes. No matter how fast you tried to, to get it down. Next door, to the, if you saved some of your money, next door to the theatre was the Sweet Shop. And you could go in there and you could get cokes, big glass of coke, which was a nickle. And they didnt even charge you any extra for throwing a squirt of cherry or a squirt of vanilla, so you, or a squirt of chocolate and you, you could even get a combination. I mean, I got a couple of times, combinations that simply were not drinkable. [laughing] Didnt we all? And we drank them anyway, didnt we?

DW: [laughing] Yeah, thats right. Absolutely. Now, did you get sundays there? And how much

Pat: They were available. But far too much, seems to me that they were twenty five or thirty-five cents, which was, that was an outrageous fortune.

DW: Well, I would call ours, being in New York State, fifteen cents for a monsterous amounts of ice cream.

Pat: Oh, my

DW: Where the syrup would fall over the top of the dish. [laughing] Back to the movie, a minute, did you ever get free comics books at the movies?

Pat: No.

DW: Okay, well, there again, I am talking about the place where I did. They gave comic books out to children, going in.

Pat: We had comic books, and I want to say comic books were a nickle, and I remember WonderWoman. Those were all for sale across the street, at the drug store. WonderWoman and Spiderman, and __ range of heros. But it was WonderWoman, was the one I liked. I think it was one of the few that I would spend my money on.

DW: Do you remember movie magazines?

Pat: Yes. Yes, so that they would try to lock you into, yes.

DW: Yes, with big color photographs of popular stars at the time. It seems like, I dont know if they have, I havent checked. I dont know if they have them anymore, but they had ever so many.

Pat: I think of the children of these days, being far more sophisticated and worldly, than we were.

DW: Yes, well thats true. Did you at that

Pat: But, we didnt have television.

DW: No, thats true. And did you ever write for movies stars pictures.

Pat: Never. DW: But, that was

Pat: Only one, if Robert Redford had been around then, I might have.

DW: [laughing]

Pat: I had to wait until I was in my mid-thirties before I ever got a crush of any kind, on a movie star, and it was Robert Redford.

DW: Well, at that time, back in the forties, it was possible to write to the studio.

Pat: Yes, these movie magazines encouraged you to do that.

DW: Right. And you got a nice photograph, that was signed, and we always hoped it was signed by the person, that we wanted.

Pat: I think they did that, then. I think they do their own signatures. We had all musicals came through.

DW: Now, tell me, what was the

Pat: And we had serials.

DW: That was what I was going to say.

Pat: Yep, we had serials.

DW: What was a matinee? How many movies, how many showings did you have of movies?

Pat: Just one, in the afternoon.

DW: I was, I should say how many movies were shown?

Pat: Were involved, there always was a cartoon. There was a newsreel, do I remember, a serial? Cartoon, newsreel,

serial. I dont remember if they were previews about coming features or not. I think not.

DW: I dont believe

Pat: And then, just the movie.

DW: One movie?

Pat: Yeah.

DW: We usually had a couple features, do you remember what they were mostly? Were they Blonde and Dagwoods? Or westerns?

Pat: Oh, the serials?

DW: No, the movie features.

Pat: The movie features, the ones, the thing that flashes through me are the musicals. Ester Williams. Ester Williams films, Doris Day. Well, although, you have to understand, also when Frankenstein came out, the serials would be westerns.

DW: Okay, usually.

Pat: The serials were always westerns. Western movies, I dont remember. Frankenstein, I went up to see Frankenstein. And I ended up having nightmares for three days and I walked out of the movie, because I was so horrified. And I did not go to a movie that I would consider, might be scarey. For years, and years, and years, and year and years. So, the musicals and the little light, the Wizard of Oz. I remember when the Wizard of Oz first came through

and I walked in and sat down to watch the Wizard of Oz and was heart broken, because it was in black and white. I didnt know the Wizard of Oz started out in black and white, and didnt go to color. So, I sat there with my heart just broken, but I was there, so I might as well stay and watch it. And, of course, it went to color and that broken heart just came all the way right back up.

DW: But that was a wonderful technique. Pat: Yes.

DW: Having the color come out.

Pat: And that was new, color was still comparatively new. At least for us, although I remember, it seems to me that most of the musicals were in color. But, I also remember that color was a special treat, at the time the Wizard of Oz came out, so I may have up color, for the musicals.

DW: I think Ester Williams, was in

Pat: Was she in color?

DW: I believe she was in color.

Pat: I remember this from my teenage years. I discovered Gone With The Wind, when I was twelve years old and, well, the kind of spoiled child that I was, I stayed up, I started it at six oclock one night and I was just polishing it off when Mother came in and called me to school the following morning at seven. And I told her I was not going to school that day. That I might never go to school again. I had just finished reading Gone With The Wind. Well, and I didnt go to school that day. But, within six months, the movie came to town and it had to have been, the second or maybe the third re-issue of Gone With The Wind. Well, my Scarlotte, in my imagination, in my twelve, thirteen year old imagination, my Scarlotte and my Rhett could never have been matched on screen. Nor my Tara. The picture that

Margaret Mitchell had painted was, in my imagination, well, I sat down and stayed for about twenty-five minutes, and Gone With The Wind, the first time I went to see it, is the first movie that I ever got up and walked out on. I walked out on it, because I was so disgusted.

DW: Dont you think thats often true when we read books first, then you build in your mind, and it is rather disappointing to see how Hollywood sees it. Well now, did you have stage shows, that you can recall?

Pat: When I was in, not on the theatre stage, they didnt use the theatre that way, not when I was, they had, as I understand in years earlier. __ on stage, to do, oh they did drawings, they did a little this, a little that. It was one of the only places that was cool in town, so the workers would come in from the dam actually and go to the theatre, not to see what was there, but so they could sleep in the coolness. There, there were stage shows. I was, and this has to be fourth grade, third grade, fifth grade and sixth grade, up to the sixth grade. Every Friday afternoon, we would have, I think they called it assembly, and the old gymnasium, its where Parks and Rec is now. City Hall was the school, the gymnasium was the Parks and Rec building. Well, they still had, you can see where it was a basketball court. On the south end of it, and there was a stage out there, well, Friday afternoons the performers would come out from Las Vegas. We got to see some pretty spiffy.

DW: I would guess.

Pat: The one that is locked into my head, is Liberace. Liberace came and played for us. DW: So, what year are we talking about?

Pat: All the way through the sixth grade. And, I wanna say, starting when I was in the third grade, so that would have been, 44? 44? Five? Six? And seventh. Liberace is the one that just jumps out and I remember, though. Cause I was impressed.

DW: Did he put on a good show?

Pat: Oh, I still remember it, as I sit here. He, he did his cement mixer goes putty-putty. He was having such a wonderful time up on stage, and I, the reason that one was locked in, for me, I didnt stay until the end of his concert. He got me so fired up, that I went home and for the next six months I practiced and practiced, and practiced.

DW: Oh really?

Pat: Yeah, he was having such wonderful fun all up and down the piano and he did wear his spangles and he had his candlelbria (SP?) and I am sure that piano had to have left a lot to be desired. But, he was having a wonderful time.

DW: And so, everyone else was, too?

Pat: Yeah, just

DW: Who else to you recall coming?

Pat: Thats it.

DW: Thats the only one?

Pat: Thats it. Thats the only one.

DW: But you do remember other

Pat: Every Friday afternoon. Im not sure that I went to all of them, because we were all excused to go over there.

DW: Right. Right.

Pat: But, there was also a lot to be said for simply taking off and heading for the park, instead of going to these. I turned down a lot in my life that way.

DW: Do you recall many celebrities or whatever, coming to town? To Boulder City?

Pat: I dont in a personal sense. No, no. By the time, by the time I became in the least bit, well, I wouldnt have been in aware of any of that anyway. I mean, they could have been, but it is one of other things that I wanted to mention on this tape. People say that they want to re-birth Boulder City. You know, bring it back to what it was. My dear, in the 40s when I was growing up, Boulder City was starting to get real shabby. Real Shabby.

DW: Oh, thats interesting.

Pat: Well, the government had lost interest in it. Yes, the parks were kept green, so it always had the parks and the trees. Not a decent restaurant in town. I dont know, I would have to read Dennis book to tell me what the hotel was doing. I know about the Boulder Dam Hotel in the early 70s.

DW: It flipped around quite a lot.

Pat: Yes. In the early 50s, but when the town became itself in 1960, at that time the citizens seemed to start taking some pride in it. And I watched, personally, Boulder City from, I started coming back up to town in the early 70s, because Momma was here. And, just looking around town, the new Post Office, stuff being brought back up to snuff. Boulder City, Boulder City is created, its not re-creating, I mean, preserving what was historically good, but theyre, theyre not being the town back to any former splendor, Boulder City is becoming a place. Of incredible splendor. From my point of view.

DW: That is quite interesting. I didnt hear that before.

Pat: I left town in 1956, and my memory, which may or not have anything to do with actual reality, is paint flaking off the theatre building and the Hotel, I know exactly what was going on with the Hotel, because the last thing that I did in town, before I left Boulder City, I was the receptionist, I was the desk clerk at the Hotel.

DW: Okay.

Pat: And I was giving by Charlie, who was the so-called manager, I did that for six months. I was given these instructions on how to register guests when they came in, and this was 1956 and I left town, seems to me it was around October. I got the last three months to where I was really afraid somebody would come in to register, because I had never had any experience registering anybody. Nobody came in. I had a split shift, I, it was, you couldnt have registered if you wanted to between two and five. In the afternoon and I think I was there from like eight to two and then from whatever until like ten oclock. And my pay for doing that was room and board, at the Hotel. There was a little restaurant in the Hotel. Where I got my food for free. And, but I dont even remember, I have nothing to say about the food. I was given the basement room. Very large room. And that is where I slept.

DW: Well, that is interesting. Thats interesting to know that it really went downhill.

Pat: The town was just very shabby. We had, the only place to really to go and eat in town was Harrys Caf and the only thing to order was his Chinese Pork. Everything else on the menu was just greasy and horrible, but it was, on the appetizer he had this Chinese Pork, served with sweet and sour. DW: Isnt that interesting?

Pat: Yeah, the Chinese mustard and the

DW: Now was that was the only market in town? Central Market?

Pat: Central Market.

DW: That was the only one there, before Vons?

Pat: I dont remember, I dont know when Central Market moved. Central Market, the medical complex, the turquoise building that at Avenue D and Wyoming. Just west of Grace Community Church. Thats where Central Market was when I was a kid. And after the war, at some point, Manixs Store closed down. There had been two markets in town, the Central Market, which was a smaller market and then there was Manixs which was a general store. They not only had the groceries, and the meat and all that stuff. Thats where we got our shoes. But, at some point, I think that closed down. And Central Market, well Central Market was there for as long as I can remember. I have no memory of Central Market moving. Thats just because these things werent important to me, I am sure.

DW: Well, I think thats true, when as a child, you go to where your interest is, and not, sure, the market pry didnt mean that much to you. But I was just wondering here, you talked very early on, about your Mother having you in McKeeversville. Pat: Yes.

DW: Giving birth to you there, and having your, her Grandmother, her Grammy.

Pat: Grammy. Stephanie Fenton, my fathers mother.

DW: Being the midwife. Now, what was the doctor situation back then? Did you ever have to see a doctor in, I mean, now we take children to the doctor every couple of months.

Pat: Oh, when I was a kid?

DW: Yes.

Pat: It didnt, my Mother was actually very advanced. I think, for the time. She gave us vitamins. She was, she was health conscious, I mean she gave us a lot of vegetables. A lot of fruit. She used to buy fruit by the lug and we could have all the fruit that we wanted. I dont remember ever being taken to see the doctor, but I didnt need to see the doctor. And I probably should have a couple of the gashes that I did to myself sewed up.

DW: But, that we so different at that time. You know, we talked about the thirties and forties, people didnt take there children very often.

Pat: No. DW: When they went to school they got shots.

Pat: The only time Mother ever went to the doctor, herself, was to have babies.

DW: Thats right.

Pat: And I dont know that she went, in fact, I am pretty sure she did not go, for prenatal care.

DW: Oh, I dont think many women did, did they at that time?

Pat: And, well, I look at all of this, what I, well, Im glad that I came up the way that I came up. Instead of , instead of leaning on doctors, or depending on doctors or running to doctors.

DW: Right. Do you recall any of the doctors or Wellspring, was that the hopital.

Pat: Wellspring was the hospital.

DW: And did recall any doctors names from the period of time?

Pat: The only doctors name that I recall was McDaniels. And I might not even have that name quite right.

DW: Now, you said your Grannie Fenton lived down my McKeeversville. Did you go down there, as a child?

Pat: No, she came up to, in early 1938

DW: To Denver

Pat: They moved up to Denver Street, one of the treks that we used to make on Sundays, and on weekends and from our house on Avenue D up to Granny and Grandads house on Denver Street.

DW: What was happening down in McKeeversville?

Pat: At that time? I have no idea.

DW: Okay. Now, another thing

Pat: We thought of McKeeversville, though, I dont know if the town always had that way, McKeeversville was the slum area. There was sorta, yeah, there was sort case dispersions. People who lived in McKeeversville, there was just a sorta shadow. It was the wrong side, McKeeversville was the wrong side of the tracks.

DW: Or the highway. [laughing]

Pat: Wrong side of the highway. From the time I was, I dont even know where I got that from, you know, there was that sense and then all of the sudden, McKeeversville wasnt McKeeversville anymore. All of the sudden it was

Lakeview and somebody started realizing that having a view of that lake was something pretty special to have, and so McKeeversville became trendy.

DW: This always happens, doesnt it?

Pat: And, which is one of the ironies that I love about, about Boulder City.

DW: Now, you were talking earlier here, about walking out onto the desert and going for walks out in the desert. Was there any fear, I mean, first of all you have a hot desert.

Pat: I never saw a rattlesnake. There was no fear at all.

DW: Was there any fear that you were out there too exposed to heat and sun?

Pat: No. Once, the idioticy of children. We went out, there was a group of us, there was four of us, as I recall and we went out with full intentions of getting ourselves lost. And we did. And that got scarey.

DW: Yes. How far, where were

Pat: We didnt take any water. Up there where the tank is. We were off in the desert that way. And got ourselves and purposely all turned around and then it wasnt fun anymore. And then, no food, no, I mean, in shorts. Starting to get a little cool. Somewhere, and I still dont know how, found our way back and saw the hill, the Administration building. There was water spicket (spell?) up there. And water never tasted so good. We crawled up there and that only happened once. To go out in the desert and purposefully get ourselves turned around. Cause, for the most part, I have a good sense of direction anyway. And we didnt go that far into the desert. You know.

DW: I would like to make a comparison now, of, now here, 1998 in Boulder City people are a little concerned about

letting their children go a few blocks away and all. When you talk about the forties, early forties, there, children went out into the desert, up in the middle of the night, did you recall your Mom ever having any kind of fears?

Pat: Nothing. Never. Why, we would get up, we would walk over to Grandmothers. We could be gone for hours and hours, there was, she knew we were fine, whatever we were doing. She also raised us to be independent.

DW: Well, that, do you think there is, in the comparison mode here. Ah, a great deal difference between children today and children at that time, as far as independence goes?

Pat: Absolutely. Absolutely. Kids today, oh you get into a car and you automatically catch a seat belt. I still dont check for seat belts. There, its a different kind of independence. It, they have a, its called the internet, the computer. You know, they have access to a world today that we didnt. We didnt have television in Boulder City until 1956. I only really only started watching television, to speak of, in the early eighties, myself.

DW: Now that, there is a whole different world, a difference except you talk about the amount of freedom, they had. Parents didnt worry. You could go off

Pat: Oh yeah, these kids they dont have any freedom at all. Or, the kids that dont have any freedom dont have any freedom. It was not irresponsible, of my Mother, to not know where we were every instant of the time. These days, it would be irresponsible of a mother not to know where her children were.

DW: Right, well this was also true, I lived in a large city.

Pat: You were in New York City?

DW: Not New York City, Rochester, but the same thing was true there. You, children did go out to all parts of the city and parents were not concerned. I mean, not that they didnt care.

Pat: Right, exactly, theres. Right.

DW: Now, Teddy, is very famous in this town.

Pat: Yeah [laughing], my wonderful Momma.

DW: What do you recall about her, as a Mother? You say that she allowed, she wanted you to be independent. She cared about your health.

Pat: She, yeah, what Mother says now, her children tend to be disappointed in her, as a Mother. Mother is not affectionate. Mother is not, there is no hands on. My two brothers, when they got into trouble said that part of that is that they never got a hug. They never heard there mother say, I love you. That kind of mothers always, shes standoffish so, the way that Mother demonstrated her concern, one of the things that Mother said and Mother was an orphan. I started being busy understanding my Mother, I think about the time I was eight years old, so I didnt expect stuff from her, that I got from Lucille Burt. Yet, Mother didnt teach me how to cook, that wasnt the deal. Mother wanted to raise her children to be free, because Mother had to start making her own way in the world, when she was very, very young. And she didnt want her children, nailed down into that kind of thing. She was as good a mother as I think most mothers are. She was as good a mother as she possibly could have been and she, I believe, was certainly the kind of mother that I needed.

DW: Now, you know, she really was a leader in this town. What do you attribute that to? From knowing her? What characteristics did she have that, she, if she were an orphaned girl, what gave her so much strength to go off to do all this?

Pat: To go out and do everything, shes the one that talked my Dad, she realized that Dad was not going to be a great provider and she found herself with five children and a man that she couldnt count on to bring home the bacon. And

so, it was mothers plan to raise the house, and to rent the rooms out, so that she could start having us, this is a women with an eighth grade education, so that she could have a source of income and did not have to depend on him. And along about, Mother, in renting out the rooms in nineteen, I think it was forty-eight, a man named Joe McClosky came through, he was sick, he was getting a divorce, he __ and he took one look at this bright, really energetic, my Mother has ten times the energy of most people. And he decided to open her mind up, so after he had left, he sent her books. He sent her books to read and she started writing to him and that opened up her mind. Mother always looked around at most people, Mother had hoped, I know, in the early years, that her children would do it for her. That she could sort of sit back and be proud of her kids. Well, we didnt. None of us did, so about the time she turned fifty, she said, well, none of you is going to do it, so, guess what? You are old enough, youre raised, you are on your own, I am gonna do it. What is it that she is gonna do? Make a mark in this world. And how was she going to do that? She wants to leave a monument behind, and she looked around, she always been the rooming house. The apartment house. I mean, when Momma first started that business, she was cooking these guys lunches, she was doing all their laundry, we were cleaning. Momma maintains that she did it by herself, but I spent a lot of Saturdays and Sundays, Saturdays particularly, Sundays was sorta a day of rest. Helping her clean those rooms, helping her do, we used to do laundry, and our, we had, two lines of clothes, each one of them had four lines. We would have it all full of sheets and the sheets sometimes doubled up. I change all of these beds that had to be changed, I mean, Momma worked her butt off and always felt kind of less than. Less than. She, when she married my Dad, my Dad idolized her. Dad absolutely loved her. The rest of Dads family thought she wasnt good enough, though. So, Momma has had a life where it was, a kind of a Ill show you. Not only am I good enough, I am so much better than the rest of you, so this, this, this, spirit of competition. Well, she was so grateful to Boulder City for allowing her to have the rooming house in a residential area, without anybody really coming down on her, but understand a lot of people back in the days when Momma started this had, they rented out rooms. Esther Shipp used to rent out rooms. Rose Lawson still has apartments in her basement. There werent enough places, so it wasnt just anything just specific to Momma, people all over town did it, but Momma really did expand it into an art form and it is the family business. Mommas always loved politics, always been fascinated by politics, so she involved herself in politics. When I was thirteen, I talked her into doing the Teenage Club, because there was no place, it is the same __ private the kids have today. There is no place that belonged to the kids themselves. Why Momma excepted doing this in 1952, I will never know. I mean, I woke her up at 1:00 a.m., I

had been out drinking beer with my cronies, you know, the bad kids in town. Gotta have this Teenage Club, Momma, we have to have some place to go, then we will be off the streets. Well, all I was really doing and all my cronies went for it, but what I was doing really trying to get Momma off my back, get her so involved in something else, that I would let alone. Mother got into doing the Teenage Club, shed already found herself leading the March of Dimes, remember the March of Dimes?

DW: Oh sure.

Pat: Well, Mom was the chair person of that. Or whatever, in 1951. And she found that she loved community work and loved community involvement. And that once she opened up her mouth and started talking to people, that you know, people had something to say, something to share and then she got, starting getting excited just about Boulder City in general. And politics. The Teenage Club, by the way, was a roaring success. And the kids did the work. If people want to get teenagers, you cant give them things. If they want something, you have to make them work for it.

DW: Thats right, you have to make it possible. Then let them support it.

Pat: Exactly, exactly. And Momma did that with the Teenage Club, when my Momma is happy in a room, she has the capacity to make the whole room happy. Thats, she is a very, very powerful personality.

DW: Well, she is. And as I, like you said, she was an orphan so many years, then to have the strength to go out and do all of this, I think that is very remarkable.

Pat: And she kept gaining strength. So, her first taste of writing for the newspaper, she wanted my assistance, so the first few articles in the Boulder City News, out of that Teenage Club are signed, a Reporter. And Mother maintained it was my sister, Donna. Well, it wasnt, it was Mother. Donna and Donna has always been, Donnas very angry about that. How dare she say it was me. You know, she tried to force these, the thing between kids and parents are so difficult, you know, for me, at this time of my life. Im still resolving childhood issues with my Mom. Cause I found

myself going numb as a teenager. And mother said, and Mother still does, she opens up her mouth and out comes, out will come a sentence and there is no understanding of how deeply that sentence might wound.

DW: Yes, yes. Pat: And so, my, I would just go, when I was a kid, I would just go numb. I would go numb and run away. For a day or two, or three. And the whole thing would just go, I am still answering your question about what kind of a Mother she was, really. Um, I think of my Momma, truly, as the poor mans Golda Myier (spell?). In the same way that Golda Myier is the mother of Israel and Golda Myier said of herself, she was not a good mother because she gave to Israel instead of being there for her children. Now, Golda, my Momma would be unable to admit that she gave to Boulder City and other to other peoples children, and gave to the renters, instead of giving to her own children. She would not be able to say that, but it happens to be true. Momma said, I dont know what you kids expected, I kept a roof over your head, food in your mouths, clothes on your back.

DW: And she did.

Pat: She absolutely did. And it was more than was ever done for her. So, if what we do is patterned after, you know, our role models. Thank god, I have no children. [laughing]

DW: That is, and it is also, like you said, a Mother Daughter thing. In particular.

Pat: Which exists between all Mothers and daughters.

DW: Thats right, thats right. And when you have a very successful Mother, who is doing things, its awfully hard to come up to that, you know, what she might expect of you and what you expect of yourself. Pat: Exactly.

DW: She surely has put her mark on Boulder City, in a very positive matter.

Pat: Dennis McBride fears that when Momma dies, the magic will die.

DW: It might possibly do that.

Pat: Well, I dont think so.

DW: There are more people coming up behind.

Pat: Yeah, I hope not. There a couple of younger, there is Patty Sullivan here in town, and who, I cant remember her name, Sissy. Something, Sissy. She has Boulder City Internet. That little gal. They both refer to themselves as young Teddy Fentons.

DW: Oh really, now nice.

Pat: Yeah. Virginia Haynie, in town, says I look at what Teddy did and Im, and there are a lot of people who have been inspired.

DW: Well, she has been an inspiration.

Pat: By what it is that she has done. And there are areas, I just look at my Momma and I am so proud of her. I was at St. Judes Ranch with her, she knew she was going to be given an award, but that was not how she got me down there. She got me down there because it was an open house, it wasnt till after we got there that, that it came out that she was going to get an award. They gave her a plaque and they have named her, I always get weepy, I am so proud of her, I just cant stand it. They gave her a plaque naming her the honorary god mother of St. Judes Ranch.

DW: Oh, how nice.

Pat: And Father Ward stood there and said, if it hadnt been for Teddy, in the early years, she wanted the streets collecting money for St. Judes. She gave of her own money to help St. Judes and she wrote voluminously in the newspaper about St. Judes. And Mother said he gives her too much credit, but what Mother did for St. Judes, is the same kind of thing that she has done for any number of organizations.

DW: Now, Pat, you write. Do you have any, you got the inspiration, of course, from your Mother, but have you got any idea of ever writing a biography of your Mother?

Pat: Oh, Mother says that she doesnt think that I would be qualified to do it, but I have, good grief, at this point, I would say I have maybe two hundred pages. Written on Mom, but what I want to explore, truly with her, is in part the Mother Daughter relationship, cause I am really trying to resolve that. Im really trying to resolve that. Well, I have been trying to do, I spent a lot of my childhood, as I already said, I think I was ten, well I was ten years old when I explained to her Edgar Allen Poes, The Raven. And that rather boggles my mind, she didnt, she didnt understand The Raven. So, I just took it at age ten, line by line, and explained to her what it was that Edgar Allen Poe was talking about in that particular poem. So, our relationship, I dont know, Mother says that her children were her best teachers. Period. And I dont know how many mothers and children know that, but it happens to be true.

DW: Sure it is. Sure it is.

Pat: So, Mother and I go back and forth on teaching one another and what I want to write about her, I have no idea which form it is all going to take until I am able to sit down and start doing it. And, at this point in time, I cant, I cant confront sitting down and writing about her, because its not going to happen, til shes gone.

DW: Yes, yes. It is such an important part of Boulder City and she touches on so much.

Pat: From the Boulder City stand point, Dennis and I have talked about doing the book together, and Dennis is

qualified to write about her in that way, in a way that I am not.

DW: Well, he can, couldnt put it aside, I mean, he is not, he doesnt have the

Pat: There not the emotional. Right, there is not the emotional, although, Dennis is Mothers spiritual son. And she was there, she, my Mother, would you like to know my Mothers response to the fact that I have not only written, but got my, got one of mine published. Would you like to know what Mommas response was?

DW: Yes.

Pat: She could have been a concert pianist, if only she had applied herself. That was her reaction to my book. And whenever anything has come up about my book, Mother says, I wish youd, Id be talking to somebody, you know, like business people, editors, publishers, I wish those people would do something about Dennis, now he is a writer.

DW: Yes. [laughing] I see what you are saying.

Pat: but, I have to say, I have really stay outside of it, not to have it wound me.

DW: But, it is the same thing, its the turn around. I mean, like you say, you can write about her right now, and she is having a problem with this daughter, who can write, but she wants, cant quite get to that point, either. Oh dear, Mothers Daughters. [laughing] Well, back at

Pat: What time is it?

DW: Almost 1:30.

Pat: Thats okay, Ive still got

DW: We still have a little bit of tape here. Um, what do you recall about oh May Day and other holidays?

Pat: Oh, the Easter egg hunt up in the park. Was, it was just seemed magical and I dont even know that there was all that much to it. You know, but it was just the whole idea of it being up there and there was all the little Easter eggs just everywhere. And us in our little Easter outfits going up and finding, not chocolate, I mean, these are egg eggs and then the little soft candies, and then the little baskets and there was always a massive Easter egg hunt for the children of Boulder City.

DW: What years are we talking about there?

Pat: The years that I would have cared about it would have been starting, what 44 or 45. And then by the time I was ten or eleven, it would have lost its magic for me. May Day, there was a pole with ribbons, and May Dad didnt make a whole lot of sense to me, because it was, it just didnt make any sense. What, you grab a ribbon and you danced around this pole, but there was nothing to, there were no Easter eggs, there were no, and thats all I remember about May Day. We had one, when I was a kid, we had a real strong Brownie movement and Girl Scout movement and led by a lady named Myra Dodge, is one of the, one of Mothers patron saints. Myra Dodge. Alice Dodge Brumbridge. I have a hard time with Alices name. I always think of her as Alice Dodge.

DW: They are from McKeeverville. Pat: Yes, yes and I hope Alice is much older than me, but she should have memories, I would think of McKeeversville.

DW: Yes, I do talk to her.

Pat: Good, I still hoping that Momma can talk to you about McKeeversville. She goes back and forth. Shes still going back and forth. But, Myra Dodge and the Brownie thing. Magical moments out of childhood and this had to have happened all across the country. Looking into the magic mirror that was the pond. Do you remember the magic? The

Magic Mysterious Mirror, that was going to give you the answers to all your serious questions?

DW: No.

Pat: Aw, that was just delightful, but by the time we were ready to graduate Brownies and move on into Girl Scouts, the, its like the May Day and the Easter eggs, Id been there, been there, done that. But, then Las Vegas, my grand dad made the mistake of teaching me how to drive when I was twelve. So by the time I was fifteen, I was jaded on what Vegas had to offer, in the way of, and I mean, been there, done that.

DW: Yes, yes. Well, how,

Pat: Thats not a real answer to your May pole question, but thats the best you are going to get from me. DW: But, they had quite a little ceremony, though, at school, didnt they? For May Day? You dont recall?

Pat: I remember a pole in the park, and ribbons and dancing.

DW: Now, what about Christmas?

Pat: Oh, our Christmass. We would get, well, Christmas, Christmas is the same clear across the country, I think. There was not enough money to lavish presents on everybody, but we always got, we always got at least one nice present. But, Christmas is holidays, but this is me, this is, my childhood. They have been thundering for the last half hour.

DW: I havent heard it. [laughing] Im sorry, you were talking about Christmas.

Pat: They werent magical times for me. They were, they were one of the times when my Mom and Dad stuck together, though. And the Christmas tree, the presents, we had, we had the whole Christmas morning thing, when there was nothing under the tree on Christmas Eve and then you wake up on Christmas morning and you would come out and

there it is. And it turns out that our parents had stayed up all night long. And, and according to Mom and you would never know, cause Dad

[tape ended]