This is a copy of the museum's document scanned in:
Family:
Will you please state your full name?
Doris May Anderson
When were your born and where?
23 Of November 1925 in the Idaho Falls LDS hospital
Who delivered you?
I can’t remember his name and I can’t read his writing. He writes like most doctors
do.
What is your father’s full name?
Ede Uriah Anderson
What was your mother’s full name?
Elizabeth Alsadia Campbell
What was your maternal grandparent’s name?
John Campbell, and Talitha Humble
What were your paternal Grandparents names?
Andrew Anderson and Eliza Ann Curtis
What year did your family come to Teton Valley?
I don’t know for sure but Grandpa & Grandma were married here in Victor in 1892
Do you know why they moved here?
They left Scotland because of the religious up roar they had, and they came to Victor
because Grandpa thought this was most like Denmark. Where they lived
What were your sibling’s names?
Rosalie, A C and Leah
What did your parents do for a living?
Daddy Anderson worked for the city of Idaho Falls driving the water wagon that’s
before the streets were paved so they watered them every day to keep the dust down
What did your Grandparents do for a living?
Farming and milked cows
Where in Teton Valley did your Grandparents live?
Here in Victor and in Clawson.
Do you remember where in Clawson?
My dad died when I was 2 and Mother brought us kids back here to live with her parents, about a mile east of the old Clawson church house( now the furniture making place)a mile east of Hatches corner
Where in Teton Valley did your parents live?
I was eight when Mother remarried and we lived with my grandparents all that time then we moved to my step fathers farm The old fish hatchery out from Clawson a mile ( Royce and Laura Reiley live there now)
Where in Teton Valley did you live as a child?
Out at the old fish hatchery for 2 years then we moved a mile east of Tetonia Who was some of your neighbors?
Seth Hansen was the closest, we didn’t have close neighbors
What was the area or town like when you were a child?
Well there were a lot more buildings that there is now. There was a red and white grocery store and Butch and Otto Munson run a pool hail, There was a dance hail and a service station and café in together, Barber shop and bowling alley and a show house, and Hoopes’s, I don’t know what they called it, like a bed & breakfast. Drugstore, Row Alderman Garage, AC Miner store and the post office
childhood:
Where was your home, what kind was it, and is it still there?
Went we moved into my grandparent’s home it was so crowded, there were 9 of us in a 3 room log cabin. It had a dirt roof, and they put what they called fuctory which was some kind of cloth that they tacked to the ceiling so the dirt wouldn’t seep through and it was chinked up and every summer they had to do more filling in so that it would be warmer for winter there was no foundation under it just logs, no electricity and no indoor plumbing
When you moved into your step dads home what was that like?
Well it seemed like it was a mansion. There were four rooms down stairs and all the rooms upstairs and just mom and dad and us four kids.
My Step dad was Gus Chase , he had four daughters but they were all married by the time mother married him I was eight years old and there was such a difference between Mr. Chase and my grandpa My grandpa was so soft spoken and a quiet, gentle person and Mr. Chase had a loud booming voice and I was just afraid of him He and Mother hadn’t been married very long and it was just two days before Christmas and Grandpa Campbell passed away so mother went to Driggs to stay with grandma and he was there alone with us kids He said “if you kids want Christmas to come you better get a tree up , there’s one down there in the shed and a wheel you can use to hold it” Ac and I trudged through the snow and brought it up and I got thinking, that old man doesn’t know much about Christmas because your not suppose to have the tree up, it is there Christmas morning just like the presents are. That is the way it had always been at grandpas and grandmas we never saw the tree until Christmas morning and it would be all lit up with candles, real live candles, anyway we took the tree in the house and he brought tout a box of decorations and it was the first time I had seen store decorations all we had on ours was chains and popcorn and colored paper all homemade ornaments We put the tree up and hung our socks; it just didn’t seem like Christmas time with mother gone and finally went to sleep All of a sudden that booming voice “You kids better get down here it looks like Santa Clause didn’t make it” of course we went running down stairs tumbling over each other trying to get down there and sure enough the tree was just like we left it the night before and I looked over and the socks were just as flat as they could be I knew I was going to start crying and I didn’t want that man to see me cry so I started to the kitchen and I got to the door and there on the table was four piles of presents, one on each side of the table and I looked over and he was standing in the doorway and it looked that his eyes were just sparkling and he was just a grinning and I ran over and threw my arms around him and from then on he was dad, he wasn’t that man he was my dad
What kind of heat did you have?
Wood stove
Did you have a garden, cows, and chickens?
Mother always had a big garden and she canned everything she could possibly can Dad would always raise a pig and a calf he could butcher Mother canned most of that. The ham and bacon was out in salt brine. We had no refrigerators, we also had cows and chickens
What are some things you ate for your meals?
Anything that was put on the table
Where did you get your clothing that you wore?
Most of them mother took other clothing and ripped them apart and cleaned them and made our clothes I got my first store bought coat when I was nine year sold What were your chores?
Carry water for one thing , quite a long ways, a quarter of a mile probably, we used two big milk cans, on the sleigh in the winter, we would pull up by the cemetery, there was an open spring we would fill the cans with water and pull them down and do the same thing the next day.
Can you picture the inside of your barn and tell me what you see.?
Oh I loved the barn. There was hay in the middle of the barn and the cows on one side and the horses on the other side. I was fascinated with all that livestock
What games did you play as a child?
One thing was we would crawl up in the rafters were the hay was a and jump down into the hay We went fishing on a pole bridge, daddy showed us how to use a wire and hook them and jerk them out, we had more fun doing that than anything else Who were some of your friends?
I didn’t really have any at that young age because we never got into town much to know anyone The first real friend was Lawrence Holder and we met when we were 14 years old and to this day we keep in touch
How did you travel around ( horse, car, buggy etc)
Horse and wagon. I got a car before my family did., I was nineteen
What the family done for recreation?
Go fishing and picnicking
Do you recall any “Indian” stories told by your parents or grandparents? Well I sure did, because back three generations my great great grandmother was Indian Mohawk Indian from Mohawk valley in New York She spoke three different dialects of her language. When Grandma Anderson was coming across the desert they stopped for the night and grandpa took the oldest boy and went to see if he could find water He took the horses with him, they hadn’t been gone very long when grandma could see this dust coming towards her and as it got closer she could tell it was Indians She covered the two little kids up with blankets and told them not to make a sound She sat there and waited for them to come and they circled the wagon Each time they circled they would get closer until they were right again the seat where she was sitting She started bringing food out, bacon and potato’s and stuff and the main Indian would just grunt and shake his head and she kept trying different things Finally she took her feather bed that she rolled up and spread it out on the ground and showed the Indian that he was suppose to sleep on it. He laid on it and then he started bouncing on it just like a little kid and he had one of the other Indians roll it up and put it on the back of his horse and away they went
What were the winters like?
Seemed like there was a lot more snow, to the top of the fence posts, yet I don’t remember ever missing a day of school for cold or roads not open
Where did you get medical care?
In Driggs what we got The parents did most of the medical
Do you remember any Doctors or Dentists that were here then?
I remember Dr Redner and there was a dentist They both had offices over the bank in Driggs. That dentist pulled one of my teeth out that had been aching he charged mother a dollar and he turned around and gave the dollar to me for being so good. Then my cousin spent a week trying to pull one of his teeth to get a dollar.
School
Where did you attend school?
In Tetonia and Driggs I started school when I was just five years old
Who was some of your teachers?
Miss Morgan was the first grade teacher in Clawson and she got married at Christmas time and we had a hard time trying to remember to call her Mrs.
Who was some of your classmates?
Chloe Hansen (Bagley) she lived close to us and we would ride the bus together the school bus was a covered sleigh Chloe Hansen and Donald and Merlin Beard and I was the only ones in the first grade. It was a two room school house with a pot bellied stove in each room. We used wood to heat it with
How did you get to school
In the summer we walked, in the winter we rode a horse If it was very stormy they would take us in the sleigh
What games did you play in school?
Jacks, Ring-around-the —rosy, we just made up games as we went along Did the teachers discipline the children?
I don’t remember them ever disciplining I remember she wanted us to act out the story of the three little pigs one day she said I could be one of the pigs I didn’t want to be one and I started to cry and see said “ it’s afright you don’t have to be the pig if you don’t want to” and my cousin spoke up and said” I’ll do it” so they let him be the pig instead of me.
What did you take for your Lunch?
Peanut butter sandwiches
Teen Years
Where did you attend high School?
I didn’t attend high school I went to Grooms Beauty College
How old were you then?
Seventeen
What were the styles then?
There at that school we had to have our dresses 10 inches from the floor and they did a lot of finger waving. We didn’t do hardly any manicures The perms were electric clamps that hooked on to your hair Then when I was in school they came out with the cold wave, they quit using the electric ones right pronto
Where did the kids “bang out”?
Just if some of the kids had a birthday we would celebrate it by going somewhere and having dinner, we didn’t have time for a lot of running around All the boys were in the Army anyway.
What kind of recreation was there for teens?
Where did you go on dates?
IT just seemed like we would go to one another’s place, four or five of us would just get together and visit. We went to movies and usually on Saturday night there was a dance somewhere
What were some of the popular songs?
Chattanooga Choo Choo
Do you remember any ski hills?
I remember they built one up to Victor I went up there once but I didn’t ski I went up with my brother
Do you remember any sawmills?
There was Hills sawmill and Christensen’s had a sawmill My granddad Campbell had a sawmill when he first came here in Grove creek in Victor.
Do you remember any mines?
Just the coal mines on the west side Three of my Uncles worked there What kind of teen dances did you have if any?
Jitter Bug was the main dance We square danced and Virginia Reel
Did you have any kind of picture shows, what was your favorite?
The Giant with Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor
Depression Years
Do you remember the depression era?
Yes I do and I don’t think it affected us to much We always had plenty to eat even though sugar, meat and gas was rationed.
Money was hard to come by Not long after that is when my step dad passed away. It really put mother in a fmancial bind The county gave her a check for $12.50 a month but the stores wouldn’t take them because they would usually bounce They told mother to hold onto them until somebody paid their taxes and then to cash it How did Grandma Support you kids?
My brother AC was in the Army and he came home in August and he was sent right over seas as soon as he come home, and he was killed in January and the government sent mother a small check I can’t remember how much it was $ 65.00 a month I think, and that’s what she lived on She quilted for people she charged $ 3.00 a quilt She picked potatoes and I went to work babysitting for a school teacher and I would stay at their place from Monday to Friday night then I would go home and go back on Monday..
Did you see many transients in Teton Valley?
There was quite a few that would stop because we lived right by the highway, they would stop and mother would always fix them something to eat.. I remember one night she was so worried because we were home alone with her and she had a gas lantern sitting in the table and she went to clear something back from the table so she could set another plate for this man that had stopped and she got to close to the curtain and they went up in flame and he put the fire out and cleaned every thing up He ask if he could sleep in the barn over night and mother gave him a quilt and let him..
What jobs were affected by the depression
There weren’t any jobs Dad got a job with the Government building the hospital in Driggs.
Mother rented a room to the men who were paving the highway from Tetonia to Victor and then rented 2 rooms to the school teacher that taught in Tetonia ? They were just going to stay a couple of weeks until they could find another place and they were there two years
MARRIAGE
Where did you meet your future husband
When I was in the first grade at school he was in the fifth grade
I also knew him because he was a grandson to my stepdad. .He came to our house quite a bit. He and AC were good friends..As I got older one of Earl’s friends asked him why he didn’t date me and he said because she’s to young.. When Earl came home from the e Army and we started going together that same friend said” I thought you said she was to young”, Earl said “well she grew up while I was gone” Where did you go on some of your dates?
Dances, shows, and fishing We would go fishing and take a picnic
Where were you married and who married you?
I took my mother and sister and Earl took his brother and dad and we went to butte Montana and we didn’t have our license so they sent us to the courthouse and while we were over there I said to Earl that guy we just talked to was blind so lets go to somebody else So we went to another one and low and behold he was blind too.. But it must work whether you are blind or not because we stayed together nearly fifty years..
Did you honeymoon, where?
Well I guess you could call it that We came home and got up early the next morning and went to Caidwell, then we went over to Parma and seen Earl’s sister that he hadn’t seen for 3 V2 years
Where did you and your husband! wife first live?
In Earls dads woodshed It was two rooms and we fixed it up cute Everybody called it a doll house, they would come to see it. The little old German guy that lived across the street gave us the cutest little wood stove it had an oven and everything It was so small I could only put one bread pan in the oven at one time.
What other homes did you live in?
We lived in Parma the first winter we were married then we lived in the cabins there in Driggs they are not there any more One time ewe lived in the old Cache school house Earl would saw a bunch of wood and bring it in and run right back out and start on another bunch before it would burn out that stove took so much wood, the wind would blow snow through the cracks That was a bad winter, that was worse than the depression. We hadn’t been able to get out , the snow was so deep and the day before Christmas, Earl walked into town to get the mail from mothers because they had been holding it there, and he had got a check from the army and he bought Christmas in Tetonia with that check
How many children did you have, and what are their names?
5 Cheryl, Craig, Rowena, Billy, Stacy
What did your husband do for a living?
Carpenter work as long as his health permitted. I worked with him the last 8 years. His dad was a carpenter and his granddad was a carpenter
Did you work outside the home?
I tried it for a little while, I worked at Russ Rammell store, but with the kids I decided it wasn’t worth it I had a beauty shop after 1 graduated in mothers home and after we got married Earl didn’t want me to work
What was the worst job you ever had?
Tearing that old house of Amy Beards down, there was so much dust and asbestos particles in the air
Did you hold any church or community positions?
I was in the primary for twenty five years, I was councilor in the relief society, I ordinance worker in the temple, I was on the stake board for mutual,
I helped with elections
Where do you live now?
In Victor in a 3 bedroom 2 bath modular home and I love it It’s in Cheryl’s backyard and that makes it more nice
