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Interviewing Faith Petrick in San Francisco on March 17, 1993, the first of a possible series of interviews about her life and work, and just for the record again, you can say who you are. I'm Faith Petrick who's being interviewed. Um, I wonder if we could begin

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by you telling me a little bit about your family background, where you come from regionally, nationally, ethnically, politically. What do you think of as your roots? I think we'd have to take those one at a time, OK, whichever is most important to you as an outline.

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Well, no, that kind of begs the question for me too, uh. So I wouldn't wanna just pick one of them, but I because that would since you said that whole list and I didn't make a list, um, so I just start with the, uh, family. Um,

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both of my grandfathers, uh, had died before I was born, uh. My Father's father was a um I believe from Scotland. He was a Methodist preacher. And um My grandmother, um, it's not. Never been proven, but uh many of us believe that she was an Indian

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and uh there's a certain amount of evidence maybe to bear that out. Somewhat her appearance and uh But uh And also that this the Scotsman was among the people as I, I was taught in school actually married Indian women, most of the French and the, uh,

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Europeans generally just you had squallor. I went off and left them, but the Scots tended to actually marry, marry them. However, one of the things I remember my grandmother saying many, many times. We didn't have no preacher saying no words over us. We didn't have no

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pieces of paper. We just said we was married and we was married. And I've tried a number of times, um, ways to get at her history to find out one way or the other, but I've never tried very hard and any search has been unsuccessful. What

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part of the country did they meet in or come from? Do you know? My, um, It was around Selina, Kansas, and uh I thought she might be a Cherokee because I've seen Cherokees that are look like identical twins of one of my brothers. On the other

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hand, the name that uh she had was uh Leticia. Mandana Sharp, and I wondered maybe she had been a Mandan from that tribe because they were the ones who moved down to Mississippi there and uh But I, I just don't know, but, uh, my mother used

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to make these rather snide, unpleasant little jokes if she'd see some Indians on the street corner, she'd say, see your cousins over there, but she, she was not a person who was forthright about because it was on your father's side. So this is separate. And does

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that mean that where were you growing up? I know this is jumping ahead, but when your mother made those comments, were you still in Kansas? No, no, I was never in Kansas. OK, I'll get to that later. That's OK. Um Uh, there's just so much I

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don't know where to start in a way, maybe the maternal grandparents, yeah. Well, my mother's father was. Named Van Huys and went by the name of Captain, I think Van Huys is that H U Y S or H I S E H I S E. He

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um was a very unpleasant person. I've never been able to get anyone in the family to say anything about him other than that. He was a mean man or even let's talk about something pleasant. That was my mother's reply when I asked her and her younger

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sister just closed her mouth and said he was a mean man. I think he was physically brutal to the kids, um, and I had the impression that they all ran away from home by the time they were 16 or 17, including my mother who had become

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a school teacher by the time she was 17. Um, he had had one wife. I assume she died, and I think he had about 6 children by his first wife. And uh he and my grandmother. met in Illinois. Uh, I think she may have been his

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babysitter or something of the sort. And uh married him out of spite because she and another young woman were both After uh another man and the other one got him and so she just decided to get married. This is all hearsay. No one in the family

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has ever really said anything about anything. Um, her background is probably. English I think that maybe some Scots and Irish usual Celtic mix. I, I really don't know. I think their main name, I believe, was Hester. Nancy Hester. But I'm not the grandmother, yeah, my mother's

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mother. Um, and, uh, she and she and, uh, her husband Ben Huys literally came from Illinois out to Nebraska. Uh, in a covered wagon drawn by oxen, and, uh, I have one of my cousins, um, has the trunk that they or box whatever it was that

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they brought along in that covered wagon. So my mother was born in Beckleman, Nebraska, and I think her brothers and sisters, I think she had about 7 or 6, just the name was Beckleman Benkleman Benkleman B E N K. L E M A N I think

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something like that Nebraska Nebraska. I didn't actually get where the your father was born. I had probably around Celina, Kansas, but um when I wrote for information they said they didn't have records that far back. OK, so his father, um It was reported to have been

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in the Underground Railroad and I know he was a chaplain, I believe in the Civil War. His father's name, Craig Steven, um, no, um, Thomas Curry Craig, when I said Thomas Curry Craig, T U R R Y, I think C R A I G. Because he's

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buried in Moscow, Idaho, and there's one of these GAR Grand Army public things on his grave, and, uh, well there was a chaplain or a sergeant or what, I'm not quite sure anyway. He was in the Civil War on the side of the north. And your

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father's name? Steven, S T E P H E N Merrill, M E R R I L L Greig. I think both of those were, you know, old family names. OK, before we go any further, I'm So we have paternal and maternal grandparents and your parents being

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born about what when do you know the, I think my mother was born about 87. And my father was born 11 years old before that. So it's about 76. OK. Um, we had, uh, Methodist on the father's side and any religious affiliation? Were you raised with

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any religious affiliation? OK, well, let's, that's premature. Let me just say a little bit more about your parents. Uh, what your parents met. They're born in southern Idaho. Now let's see, how do they both get to Southern Idaho. As I said, my, my, uh, her brothers

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and sisters, as far as I know, left when they were pretty young, left the, the home because of the, the ill treatment at one time. A few stories that I've heard one time, my grandmother literally took the children and went over to a neighbor's house and

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pretty something in the last part of the latter century and refused to come back until her husband agreed. To certain uh restrictions apparently. Uh, so she had the support of these neighbors and, and, uh, I don't know anything about that. I know she went. So was

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your mother already teaching, do you think, when she was in southern Idaho? No, no. Well, she had been teaching in, uh, Nebraska. Yes, she was teaching in Nebraska. See, in those days. You got out of high school. You turned around and started teaching, and she, I

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think she graduated in high school at the age of 16, and so she, she's gone to, went to normal school or teacher training college or something. So at the age of 17, she was already teaching school in Nebraska. One of her older brothers had come out

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to Southern Idaho to teach, to teach the race teach to work on what was called the Minnedoca Project, which is a, um, huge irrigation project about what Steven Spender wrote, you know, a little in one of his books, um. angle of repose covers that particular thing

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that happened. Um, it was if it weren't for that project there would have never been the um potatoes that everybody thinks of in terms of Idaho. They think these potatoes, but anyway, they cut down the sagebrush huge stuff. I have a marvelous picture of it. A

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friend of mine was gonna do a TV thing on it and got this made some great copies of an old picture of uh my mother and three men who worked on the project anyway. She went out to join Henry, who was her favorite older brother who

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was working there, and they had this log cabin you can see part of in the picture when she arrived. They hung a blanket down the middle of this little cabin, and she had one side and he had the other. And I suppose she was tremendously in

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the band because she was extremely attractive young woman. And she was going with a man named Keck until my father came along. And uh What sparked their romance, I haven't a clue. Uh, He had gone to the University of Idaho. I actually had a master's degree

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which was something in those days. And um Do you know what he studied? Was he not well, engineering, or no, he, he became a um. He became a school principal, so I suppose he studied education or something of the sort. Or what passed for principal, he

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was also an ordained Methodist minister. And um Now let's see, you asked me how the Craigs got out to Idaho. Uh, I know how the Van Heises did in a way. Uh, in other words, his family was there. He just didn't go to school there. His

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parents were also in Idaho. My father, um, he went to the University of Idaho is Moscow, Idaho, and yes, they were around there. My, my, um, grandfather Craig is buried there in Moscow. I, I don't know just what took them out there. I don't know why

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they decided to go out there, uh, but my grandmother always, I have spent time with this grandmother, uh, Craig, and she had a little house on what is now part of the University of Idaho campus. Uh, when they married, did they remain in Idaho? As far

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as I know they never left. Your parents? Oh no, yes, my, no, well, yes and no. Um, they moved around a lot. Um Let me go into a little more, uh, of the religious background. I don't want to do a lot, but you mentioned that it

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was strong. So he was a fairly strict Methodist. Is that very? And did your mother go along with that? Pretty much, pretty much, yeah. Did he continue to preach in any way or indeed he did. They, um, I, uh, I could look up, but I've kind

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of forgotten the date of their marriage, but it, he took a homestead on what is actually the Nesperus Indian Reservation near the town of Orofino, Idaho, which is considerably further north than, uh, where the Minnedoca Project was, which is in southern Idaho. And he, uh Had

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this, um, they took this homestead. And um Built a log cabin I suppose with the neighbors and the relatives I know my brother Guy was up there for a while helping because they logged some of the place off and uh there are some pictures of it.

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It was a I think a one room log cabin and I don't know if it ever had a. A wood floor or not it had partly wood floor, but I don't know if it had all wood and part earth or what. Um And a barn made

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out of logs and the cabin, of course, made out of the logs that were cut on the property. And um my father would go off preaching on a ride the mule off taking the word of God that people who otherwise wouldn't have it for all I

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know would have been better off without him. There's a picture of him. I, my mother took a lot of pictures and uh she, they were very good. She had a nice little camera. This is northern Idaho. Well, yeah, it's, it's the Clearwater, uh, Clearwater Valley I'm

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just trying to, I'm trying to think if it's mining or if it's farming, ranching, or do you just. Very small farms, farms, yeah, see, the, I don't know too many mines right around there, although there were some when I spent one summer, uh, that was my

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father panning gold where there had been some mines. I'm just thinking of him circuit riding and whether he was going to mining towns and the, uh, places where there weren't established churches or things, well, certain places where there weren't established churches. So the nearest little town,

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the nearest town was Orfino, Idaho. Did they begin to have children there? They all 4 of us were born in that log cabin. No kidding. Yeah, I had a little brother too. He was born in Orfino but not at the cabin. So a total of 4

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children. And what would be the range of dates from the first child to the last child's birth? I'm just trying to get a sense of what I was born in 1915 and uh. Were you the, I'm the youngest, you're the youngest, OK, so, so take about

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8 years off of that to get to my born from 19, how many years did you say to take off, so about 1907 to 1915. And Uh boys and girls, boy and girl and boy and girl. I have my oldest brother's named Merrill, M E R

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R I L L. Merrill Byn. They took the two names of my mother and father. Her name was Byn, B I V A N, and if you put an A in it, she'll, yeah, if you put Vyn, she will come back and haunt you. I mean,

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Vivian, that was her first name. No, her first name was Anna. Anna Van Van Huys. And a lot of people make that Vivian and she hated that but she was called by uh Mel was named after the middle names you see of the of his two

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parents. And according to my father, the first few years of their marriage was very romantic and very nice, but uh I think it was. That fairly soon. for the record, you have Meryl Vyn and then a sister named Anita, A N I T A and then

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a brother, Glenn, G L E N N and then you and then myself. And do you have a middle name? Faith. Uh middle name Faith. What's your first name? Or is that never been used. It's Dorothea. OK, just. Doro, D O R O T H E

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A Dorothea Faith Craig. OK. Actually my mother wanted me to be named Elizabeth, but that is crossed out on the birth certificate and Dorothea written about it apparently I've heard that the Methodist Church voted on my name. Dorothea won over Elizabeth. I didn't know that's how

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they did it. Uh, tell me about what you remember from childhood. What, uh, either about this religious upbringing or the work that you did, chores as a child, uh, any of the memories that you have of your childhood. My problem is I think I remember too

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much and it's hard to select. I get started. You ask me one question and I can go on for 3 or 4 hours. I'll push you forward if I worry about time. Well, the first thing I remember actually was one night when my father was away.

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I was probably about 2. I know I was in a high chair. In this cabin and uh There was some disturbance of the animals down in the barn or over in the barn, and my mother was terribly, terribly frightened. Um, but she got my older brother

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in a lantern and went out to see what it was, but probably some animal around there were things I remember being out with my father in the wagon and, uh, seeing a wolf. He reached under the wagon seat and brought out the shotgun because in those

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days all it was right. You killed everything. You killed the eagles and all the predators and you killed the wolves and the coyotes and you just killed everything. Were you afraid of animals or did you grow up comfortable, comfortable around them? I don't remember being afraid

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of them. Um I'll tell you, I'll, let me, let me ask, since you're worried about going into too much, I'll ask you some of these specifics, and if you feel like reassociating, feel free to do it, but um. Do you remember, uh, well, let's start with

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the, you said the heavy religious training. What did that mean to you as a child? Was it something that was a burden or something you found joy in, or I don't remember any joy in it, but it's something about what you had no choice. You had

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no choice. There were prayers every morning before breakfast and prayers every night before bed. You knelt at the chairs. My father would read a chapter out of the Bible, probably. And then there were prayers before every meal and you went to church on Sunday, uh, 3

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or 4 times Sunday school and church and and you did it because it was you had to do it over, which is part of life like breathing or eating something you did, I think, to a large extent, um. My mother's concept, for instance, uh, she was

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pretty strict, she got over it, but, uh, Dancing, for example, and uh card playing were not things that led to evil. They were evil in and of themselves. Um, I can remember once. Uh, my father was not inclined to punish us physically. Uh, but I can

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remember once as a kid. Probably around 5. Uh, Sunday mornings are really very special and kind of happy times. Saturday my mother would bake. You get to eat this fresh bread, eat the crust of it, and Saturday night was a bath in the tub in the

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kitchen, and you put on clean clothes and, and, uh, clean underwear, and that's what you wore all week is that one set. But you also, she would put my hair up and so it was all curly on Sunday morning, put it up in rags. They called

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it in those days, and, uh. He had this clean pretty dress and I can remember just skipping across the floor and my father giving me a swat on my butt because he didn't dance on Sunday. Was there music in the church on Sunday? Was there hymn

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singing? Yeah, my family moved a lot. I would say that we were at the homestead probably no more than. But after I was born. 2, maybe 3 years. My father was a garden we I remember we had a garden. And I think we raised sheep. Um

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And I don't know what else. Um, and then we moved down to the flats and had another farm down on the flats near Orfino, uh, right by Orfino Creek where Whiskey Creek ran into Orfino Creek, and our cows, I think, used to, my sister told me

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this recently my the cows used to go down and drink at Whiskey Creek there because we went out to see it a few years ago, and that's how we knew where it was because of the creek coming in there. Uh, that's where my little brother was

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born. He only lived a few months, died of pneumonia, but After he was, uh, after we moved up to Cameo, I think we were probably down there only about. About a year, I don't know. His name is Fairley in case you're interested in that. He was

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named after the doctor who delivered all my mother liked him, uh, Doctor Fairley. She thought the world of Doctor Fairley, so she named this baby after him. And then, uh We moved up to another little farm on the ridges up above Cameo, Idaho. I know while

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we were down at that farm in the flats my father was teaching. I didn't. I have no conscious memory. I remember my sister saying something about it. And when we moved up above Cameo Island place called I believe Forest Center. Uh, he, it was one room

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school. But when they discovered that my mother was a teacher, they built another room on, a little room on it so that she could teach the, the first few grades. And um were you in school yet at that point? Well, I, I got into school with

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a hired girl quit. They had a hired girl and hired man. I think my grandfather Craig, no, Van Heist had died and left a little money, and I think that's what counted for this. Um, I think they bought that farm in a nice buggy with his

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money. The Van Huys in Idaho were in Idaho at this point. Were they also farmers? Yeah, I think so. I think so. Uh I'm not uh, I interviewed my aunt once and she may have told me how come they moved out there and have a tape.

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So, uh, when the hired girl quit then did you go to school? Well, yeah, there was nothing else to do with me. I think I was 4. And then that just kept up because um there was no Um, I could do the work. My, my birthday

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is in September, which always made it awkward for me to be in, uh, in, in school. So we lived up there in what we call the ranch. Which may have been less than 160 acres. It could have been even less than that. But it was a,

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it was a prosperous time. Uh And uh again I think this was done with the um probably with money inherited from uh From the Van Huys side, I would guess he at one time was reputed to have been a very rich man uh from a farming

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in um Kansas, Nebraska. And I had and no. On the Craig side also there is one great uncle who. Uh, was, was very wealthy but lost in the Depression. Oh, so when you were living on the ranch and going, were you going to the lower grade

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of the one room school with your mother teaching, do you remember doing chores at home on the ranch? No, not me, not I. What about your older brothers and sisters? Do you remember if they, yeah, yeah, the boys had to work and I'm sure my sister

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helped my mother. Um But you know, not too much was expected from me at 4 and 5. how about as you got a little bit older? No, I never, I never, I can't remember ever having had household chores except for 111 summer when I was expected

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to sweep the floor and I would do it when I saw my mother starting up the hill. I would then sweep the floor and she got there, the house would be full of dust because. But this is much later I was in the room another place.

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Did you, um, move to a similar kind of an area or with one room schools, or did you move? Well, no, it's, it's more complicated than that, uh, that I, I didn't really know too much of my mother and father's relationship except I remember them once,

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uh, um, having a. At least a verbal fight and I think taking a hold of one another somewhere and I jumped up and I screamed and ran and jumped up and down between them and they each withdrew saying see what you've done to that child each

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of them saying the same thing and my brother Glenn told me that when Fairly died it was a time of great reconciliation between them but so obviously he's using those words time of great reconciliation they were, they were in big trouble. And um Uh, did they

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not believe in divorce? No, I don't know whether they feel, but my father's the one who eventually applied for divorce, but that was when I was about 13, and they haven't been together much for a long time. I see. Did they formally separate? They, they separated,

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and I don't know if one of them maybe finally, I think one of them finally did get a legal divorce. My mother may have done it her later on. What did that mean for the family structure? Did the, well, it was these were all together. I

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would call it a pretty dysfunctional family. I think I was in the 1st and 2nd grade there at Forest Center. The 3rd grade, my mother was going. Mm, wait a minute, yeah, she went to. Hm, I said in my mind, it's not really clear, but when

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I was in the 3rd grade, I lived with my grandmother Van Heis in Davenport, Washington. So did my sister and my two brothers. We moved constantly, pretty much. Is Davenport a city or a little town in central Washington. And I think my mother was teaching school

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in a little country school not too far from Davenport because she would come in. I think to see us when the weather permitted all of the siblings were together with the grandmother, I believe so. I believe we were all there. Um, I can remember getting my

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because she was working, I can remember very distinctly getting my first new garment that I ever had, which was a coat because otherwise you had hand me downs and you put, uh, cardboard in your shoes and And you only wore shoes when it was really snowing

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around. You went in Idaho mostly you went barefoot mostly in Idaho. Yeah, uh-huh, I just want to backtrack a little bit to when you were in Idaho. One thing I asked about chores, but just do you have any memories of what you did as a Child

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other than go to school or one summer sweep the floor um in terms of play um well up up on the up on the ranch unquote we had cows and we had uh um. Mule or Nelly the mule who It's a lot of funny stories, but

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um And we had a mare named Till who was a wonderful mare. There's a picture of all four of us on her. We could do anything. We'd slide off her tail. We'd do anything. I could ride her myself. She was a trained cow horse, and if

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you fell off, she'd stop there and I'd lead her to a stump and get back on. However, she'd buck off any man. She hated men, and she would buck any man off, but us kids could do anything, and she had one colt by Rex Carter, which

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was a pretty fancy horse in those days. And we had him for quite a while and my sister would tell me about when she'd get out of sight of the house she'd let him out and he he would run, you know, because that's what they were

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their ex carvers were racing. So but anyway, I suppose it got sold and everything else did more or less, um, so you play with the animals. I'm just thinking if there's anything else that you well we had my grand my brother and I, um. birds nests.

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In fact, all of us were pretty high on birds because my mother is a real nature lover and, and I can remember one time when I was out of my 1st 6 years of school, my mother was my teacher all except 2 of those years, and

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that is terrible. Uh, just terribly unfortunate thing. Say a word about why that was so. Did you have to be on good behavior or, well, uh, surveillance, uh, I'll tell you about the birds later because I think they're important. OK, I'll make a note birds, um.

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All authority because we kept moving around all authority was vested in parents, the church, the school, the family, all authority was in them, those two people or once they were separated one or the other. And uh I never stayed in any place long enough to have

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friends. I had no peer group. I was and still think I am to this day one of the most. Socially uninformed people on the face of the earth. I just didn't know from shit. And every time I moved to new school, I think, oh, here's a

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chance now it'll be all right, you know, maybe I'll do all right. Maybe they'll like me, maybe I'll have friends, that sort of thing. Um, I was good in school. I was smart, you know. Do you like it in a way, uh, there again, it's something

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you don't. That's what life was. Children don't know there are alternatives, you know. They take what there is there. Um, but when I was in the 6th grade when my mother was a teacher, she, I always got C's from her, which is your average, right, and

00:32:26.780 - 00:32:42.330

she tried to explain to me, tried to get my understanding that if she gave me good grades, the school board would accuse her of favoritism, and they wouldn't rehire her, and she expected me to understand that, and I didn't. I think I knew I was being

00:32:42.330 - 00:32:58.430

cheated all the time because um before that when I had another teacher I was the smartest damn thing you know I was just a practically genuflex I was so smart one place actually I was put into the 6th grade when I was still 9 years old

00:32:59.170 - 00:33:15.710

and but then then we went to that was a school that had different terms that was when she was going to cheating normal. And to get her certificate to continue teaching. I, I see what you mean about having your mother for you too. Yeah, she, um,

00:33:16.170 - 00:33:26.920

she would, I suppose, be stricter with me than with other kids. I don't know. Um, I, I want to remind you to go back to birds, but before you do the, uh, there was one other follow-up I had on the playing with the animals and the

00:33:26.920 - 00:33:41.840

siblings playing together. Did you, in looking back or at the time, uh, were there any differences in the way the boys and the girls were allowed to either play or pray or do well in school, or did you feel that brothers and sisters were pretty much

00:33:41.840 - 00:33:58.870

treated the same? Hm. I don't think we were treated the same, but I don't think we were, uh, particularly conscious of it. Uh, certainly my brothers would have to go out and work, and they would handle the animals more. They did chores, I suppose. I did

00:33:58.870 - 00:34:16.710

little chores. I would. Um Maybe bring in wood. I certainly remember one time when I was about, I guess 5, maybe 6. I was picking up chips, chips reeds to start the fire. Didn't have matches most days you bank the fire at night, and there were

00:34:16.710 - 00:34:35.030

a lot of custom things that I could go on and on about. But uh I can remember picking up these chips and putting them in this little box and the funny thing is I remember my sense of that I was doing something right that nobody could

00:34:35.030 - 00:34:57.110

find fault with because My mother's way of teaching. Many of her standards are, I swear, Victorian, but her way of teaching was not to praise. She would Accepted in a way I, where I can look back on it now, but she would always say, well, now

00:34:57.110 - 00:35:11.280

try this and now do this. It was always go ahead. It was never, hey, that's good. Now let's do this. And I, I think I felt, and I think most kids did in those days and probably still knew that every goddamn thing they did was wrong.

00:35:11.570 - 00:35:34.340

You never felt that. You were all right. She was not. My mother was not demonstrative. I don't remember her ever picking me up, kissing me, holding me. Uh I can remember one time being very ill. I can remember one time being very ill. And she sat

00:35:34.340 - 00:35:52.470

by the bed and stroked my forehead. And just pleasure of that, you know, is a strong memory because that was really So it sure didn't happen. You probably didn't have that many other families around to compare to, but I was just, it just struck me when

00:35:52.470 - 00:36:06.830

you say that she wasn't physically affectionate, whether that was a norm in that area at that time, or did you feel, gee, the other kids have this, and I, I think mostly kids were to be seen and not heard, and they got smacked around and shut

00:36:06.830 - 00:36:23.830

up and Um, my mother had a very heavy hand with the, with the, um, She slapped all the time all the kids, boys and girls. For her own and in class or just in class, not so much, no, you'd hold out your hand and get hit

00:36:23.830 - 00:36:36.250

with a rule or something like that and kids were whipped in school. I don't remember her doing it, but I remember the boy being whipped when I was in the 7th grade, I think, and I can remember. Equipped with a belt in front of the glass,

00:36:36.330 - 00:36:56.450

that was a terrible thing to see. Um The things that we did on the ranch, um, The birds. My mother was very much into birds. And uh in hunting out these birds' nests, my brother and I would go and visit all of them, and I can

00:36:56.450 - 00:37:09.690

remember as many as 27 birds' nests that we would visit one day climbing up the trees there and there and the other. We never, we of course never touched them, never disturbed them, and we never one meadow lark that we could go and we could put

00:37:09.690 - 00:37:25.990

out a food and she'd come and eat it. We stayed, we stay a yard or so away. So, uh, she also though was, we'd have picnics occasionally right there on the ranch. There was still ones. It had been a um Um, there had been a mill

00:37:25.990 - 00:37:38.050

there. There was a big mill pond and a huge sawdust pile, which was one of the social centers of the community, that sawdust pile, as well as the pond because people would cut ice there in the winter and everyone in the community had all the ice

00:37:38.120 - 00:37:55.660

they wanted in the summer you'd have ice cream. That was buried in the sawdust pile. Um So she occasionally there were so few trees up on a hill on that place and we would go up there and uh And have a picnic now and then. I

00:37:55.660 - 00:38:09.180

remember my brothers teasing me that I was gonna come back as a beetle or a bear or something awful, you know. After I died, now you moved away from the ranch to a town in Washington. Did you stay in the town long or did you just

00:38:09.740 - 00:38:23.410

what happened was it was so broken up you'd be in one place 9 months at school and you'd be somewhere else for 3 months. And then you go to another place where your mother had jobs. In other words, she was following the school year different places.

00:38:24.000 - 00:38:38.100

Did that go on through most of your adolescence? Well, let's see, we were, that's what I was driving down here one time. Um, yeah, I stayed with my grandma Van Huys in Davenport when I was in the 3rd grade. In the 4th grade she went back

00:38:38.120 - 00:38:58.300

to school and we stayed in Cheney, Washington. While she got her credential for teaching in the state of Washington. The following year, she and my mother, my father were both teachers in Peck, Idaho. Very near Cameo. So you stayed in touch with your father at that

00:38:58.360 - 00:39:17.330

point? Well, I didn't personally know, but I suppose he visited. I don't, I don't have very many memories about it, um, but he was the, he was the superintendent and taught the high school, and she taught. The 4th, 5th, and 6th grades probably somewhere along in

00:39:17.330 - 00:39:32.770

there. I remember mostly, uh, learning poetry. Because she was, she had to learn a lot of poetry, I think it's probably why I was able to remember songs later on. That's one thing you could get praised for, you see, and I can remember her once when

00:39:32.770 - 00:39:48.720

another girl and I see you, you have your three classes sitting in 3 different. 5th grades here, you know, 4th grade, 5th grade, 6th grade, and we were carrying on and she was trying to teach another class and she told us to memorize a certain poem.

00:39:49.940 - 00:40:01.850

And um within a minute, no kidding, both of us had our hands up, and she wouldn't believe us, but we had memorized it. We just read it once. It was short, maybe it was a 12 line. It was a short poem. I don't remember what it

00:40:01.850 - 00:40:22.650

was, but, uh, I can certainly remember poems that I learned then, you know, snatches of them very. Very strong and, you know, babble them out. I was singing and there was one thing about church was, and this goes clear back to uh When I was in

00:40:22.650 - 00:40:38.850

the 1st and 2nd grade, going to church and singing. Uh, and I know most, I know those songs bringing in the sheaves and lower lights be burning and all those songs I learned and I, I know them to this day. Do you remember? Did you particularly

00:40:38.850 - 00:40:59.250

enjoy? I love singing because there again you'd open your mouth and let all that out and nobody told you to shut up. And my father would be up there in the pulpit ranting and raving about hellfire. And I had a very Dim opinion of God. I

00:40:59.250 - 00:41:11.560

was standing at the edge of the pit, and he had his foot in the middle of my back ready to give me a shove if I made a wrong move. And uh 1 ft was on a banana peel. Did you ever worry about the state of

00:41:11.560 - 00:41:25.480

your soul? Oh God, when I once I got when, when, when we were living in Thornton, where we had some friends out in the country, I used to visit quite a bit. I would usually get sick about the time school started and at the end of

00:41:25.480 - 00:41:44.360

school. I've since figured out it was probably emotional because this new school scared and then scared about where the hell we were going to go after it. But um I got a foxtail in my ear. And um I thought I was gonna die because Mr. Bidstrip

00:41:44.390 - 00:41:57.180

at the table said it could work its way into my brain so I assumed that I was going to die that night and actually I was crying. I was lying in bed crying. And so I said, God, If I'm gonna go to heaven, make me stop

00:41:57.180 - 00:42:15.700

crying, and I listened for God. Of course I was so dead I stopped. I stopped crying while I was listening, waiting for him to make me stop crying. And so I stopped crying and I went to sleep. I went to sleep. I made my deal. It

00:42:16.380 - 00:42:26.560

wasn't too many. Yeah, I went to sleep. He was, I was gonna go to heaven. It was gonna be all right. He wasn't gonna make me go to hell, so. Uh, it wasn't too many years later, I think I gave up on God entirely, at least

00:42:26.620 - 00:42:39.300

the one that had been shown to me. About how old would you have been when you, I think I gave up around 13, something like that. I thought, I don't believe all this stuff. He's supposed to be nice. I just don't believe all this stuff, so

00:42:39.550 - 00:42:53.670

while I probably went on believing in God for a while, he was no longer the hellfire and brimstone guy that my father used to. Can we carry on about your adolescence a little bit? Do you remember any, uh, a moment like there's a point at which

00:42:53.670 - 00:43:13.060

at 13 you gave up on that particular form of God? Were there other changes that you can recall of sort of coming into puberty or either, uh, physical changes or emotional family, uh, changes? Well, there were some very terrible things that happened actually, um. After the

00:43:13.060 - 00:43:35.750

thing in tech, um, that was, no, that wasn't the last time my parents lived together in the same house. There was much more. Unpleasant one subsequently my mother got to school. In Thornton, Washington, and we actually stayed there for 3 school terms. Another small town. Is

00:43:35.750 - 00:43:54.330

that another small town. 3 years, um, but like Peck Thornton now that I think there's, I took some pictures not too long ago there's an old uh Grain elevator there and I think the uh post office because Once you have a post office, the US government

00:43:54.330 - 00:44:09.820

keeps on going, but the school burned and everything. My mother was teaching 5th and 6th grade there, so I had the 6th grade with her, and we had a house. Which is one of the nicest houses we've ever lived in right across from the Grange Hall

00:44:10.040 - 00:44:29.770

where they had Saturday night dances and I would lie awake and listen to the band playing Bye Bye Blackbird and other beautiful things wonderful songs a lot to me the two subsequent years we rented a little house. Down Across a creek, across the railroad tracks. Did

00:44:29.770 - 00:44:43.670

you say your parents were living together at that time? No, you were just in they did, but that, but then you said that wasn't the last time they lived together. So in Thornton, um, then I went into the 7th and 8th grade and had a teacher.

00:44:44.600 - 00:44:58.030

And that was a man teacher who, you know, and I did so I was so good, of course I got straight A's and he'd be teaching me 8th grade and I'd be sitting there because I knew all the answers and finally sometimes he would say, all

00:44:58.030 - 00:45:12.310

right, faith, you tell him, you know, I get to say because it was dates and crap that they taught you in school when did Paul and oh God. And uh well mostly stuff I seemed like I'd already learned and that was bad in high school because

00:45:12.310 - 00:45:28.710

in high school I never I never learned how to study because I already knew all that stuff it was just a repeat which is too bad so the 7th and 8th grades weren't so bad um I can remember being We had everybody usually had their own

00:45:28.710 - 00:45:47.200

cows. I think we even had 11 year with my mother milking. I'm not sure, so we had chickens and certainly we had our own kitchen garden. But my mother would stay after school and correct papers and work. My sister would go on home and do the

00:45:47.200 - 00:46:02.770

cooking stuff. I hung around school and waited for her to come home. I didn't have chores. I didn't. I'd hang around and what the hell I did. So we learned there were lots of kids' games in those days and with the no dancing edict when we

00:46:02.770 - 00:46:20.780

were at the ranch there would be play parties, taffy pools, skip the balloo and Wing and Brooklyn's various games like that and box socials which were a way of raising money for school or churches box socials big Christmas programs and Christmas was this kind of a

00:46:20.780 - 00:46:40.120

center of the year. You, you were saying that terrible things happened during these years. Well, no, not during that year, this is sort of like you're now, let's see, 8th grade is what, 1213, 14. No, I, I, I was very young. I was young, yeah, when

00:46:40.120 - 00:46:59.010

we then after Thornton, my mother had to go to the hospital for a. Surgery. Uh, what they call in those days a tipped uterus. I don't know what you call it now. Um, we all stayed with my father who had a house in Moscow that summer.

00:46:59.130 - 00:47:34.910

This is just a summer. And after The Surgery, she had no place to go and she came back. And moved into this house and for a while she and my father actually shared the same bed. That didn't last too long either. Um They would have me

00:47:34.910 - 00:47:54.680

sleep between them sometimes, the 12 year old. Did you have any awareness of sexuality at that age? Turn off the tape. OK, I think my earliest sex education was was kind of weird. My mother would ask us, Do you need attention? That was her way of

00:47:54.680 - 00:48:15.150

that. So to my brothers and sisters, my and myself, our private parts, our genitals were known as our tensions. That wasn't, you need attention. And I can remember going to. Daily vacation Bible school in the summer once and the teacher saying, you kids, I want you

00:48:15.150 - 00:48:29.960

to give me attention. And I had a mental image of all the little boys going up and laying their penises on her desk and walking on by because she was said, give me, give me. Your attention and so they had to go out and give her

00:48:29.960 - 00:48:42.320

their attention. What do you think your mother meant by that? Did she mean, do you need information or no attention? Do you need to go to the toilet? Do you need to have your bum wiped, your diapers changed, or what do you mean? Yeah, do you

00:48:42.570 - 00:49:01.660

need attention? Do you need some help? So, so there was and district and on that was the family name for genitals was tension, one's tension. But I remember earlier than that to her saying a neighbor had come and said that. Um, so a woman was pregnant

00:49:02.030 - 00:49:19.720

and my mother's indignation. Uh, that, uh, they ought to do a carry nation on some of those men. And I know what she meant. She went there to cut the penises off. But I don't think she meant it literally, but, uh, she was angry at this,

00:49:19.870 - 00:49:36.280

uh. Um, more than having to get pregnant, my, my mother considered marriage is economic slavery, and she was quite right. She's absolutely right at that time. Women were stuck, and they couldn't get out of it, and she had a lot of guts to get out of

00:49:36.280 - 00:49:53.020

it, just go back to teaching. Um, so she said these things quite explicitly to her children. No, no, no, no, no, kids hear more than you think. I could be over there in the corner 20 ft away. I heard kids hear what they're talking about. Um,

00:49:53.600 - 00:50:04.420

and my sister recounted, uh, she said, Don't you remember when then we'd be playing with our dolls and the neighbors would come over and they'd say, Oh, are you gonna have babies if you're real babies when you grow up? And she said, Mother would grab us

00:50:04.420 - 00:50:18.390

to her and say, Oh no, she's not. And my sister said, and I would say in my mind, oh yes, I am. But me, I needed to please, and if my mother said I wasn't going to get married or have babies, I wasn't going to get

00:50:18.390 - 00:50:37.010

married or have babies. Did she explain to you about marriage, sex, and reproduction? Absolutely not. And when I started to menstruate, it was, it was after my first school year in high school, and I was absolutely terrified. I didn't know it. I felt an itch and

00:50:37.010 - 00:50:53.280

I was at church and I scratched and I had on a pink dress and I saw a little bloody stain on it and I came home. She was cooking dinner. She wasn't much money to go to church. Uh, and I was crying and she showed me

00:50:53.740 - 00:51:13.490

how to fold a flannel cloth. But I tell you, living away from her the next few years, I didn't know what the hell to do. I got into some, you know, unpleasant episodes because I really didn't know. Yeah, and they were washed. You use the same

00:51:13.590 - 00:51:30.220

one over and over, um. And uh, you know, nowadays your nature people are like going back to that to some extent was your sister was a few years older, yeah, but she wasn't, no, she wasn't living there then. See, she's a good 4 years older than

00:51:30.290 - 00:52:00.840

myself and she was off. She was out of college. It's 28, you see. Um, so, um, My ignorance was unfathomable at the age of 16. And 17, I thought I knew people had intercourse, but I thought that woman automatically got pregnant every time they had intercourse.

00:52:02.340 - 00:52:18.130

And when a friend of mine said, and um I had, she and her boyfriend and I, her husband, her then husband and I, they were talking and she said, I said something about My mother wouldn't have done anything about it. And she got pregnant and she

00:52:18.130 - 00:52:22.470

said, oh, she turned around and said, God, how many would we have now? 6. I thought she was telling me that.