Interview with Ruth Eileen (Cooper) Callahan

Ruth Eileen (Cooper) Callahan was interviewed on November 1, 1968 in St. George, Washington County, Utah by Fielding H. Harris, a representative of Voices of Remembrance Foundation. She related her personal history of living in various parts of Idaho, Montana, Canada, Oregon, California, Washington and Utah.

FH:Would you please give your [full] name?

RC:[My name is] Ruth Eileen (Cooper) Callahan.

FH:What is your birth date?

RC:[I was born] April 21, 1921.

FH:[Where were] you born?

RC:[I was born in] Hailey, Idaho.

FH:What was your father's name?

RC:[His name was] Isaac Leander Cooper.i

FH:[What was] your mother's [full] name?

RC:[Her name was] Mary (Edmiston) Cooper.

FH:How do you spell her maiden name?

RC:[It is spelled] E-D-M-I-S-T-O-N.

FH:What are your recollections of your early childhood?

RC:I remember we went to Montana from Idaho when I was three years old where I 00:01:00was born. We bought a ranch there sight unseen, about 160 acres as I recall. It was supposed to have water on it within a short time from an irrigation system. They were setting up, [but it] never did develop. Father took machinery, household goods and all the horses that we had. The animals were lost in bogs that were in that part of the country. They were used to a different type of 00:02:00country altogether and [the horses] would wander into these bogs and [be] buried. As time went by, we lost everything that we had and had to rent as a sharecropper from different companies there.

I remember my brother [Delbert Ronald Cooper] dying when he was injured. He had been plowing a garden for mother with his sister [who] was next to him, Sadie [Rosetta Cooper]. They were both too small to be doing this job, but the men were busy putting in crops. It seems as though the plowshare hit a rock and pulled him [off] balance and he fell on the corner of the plowshare. It pierced his heart and started a leakage. We were not in [any] circumstances whereby we could go to a doctor immediately. They really didn't realize the importance of it [or] how badly [he] was [injured]. When we finally did get him to a [doctor, 00:03:00he] had it in [his] mind that he had tuberculosis. They didn't realize what really [had happened]. So they sent him to a sanitarium at Galen [Montana]. Mother, my baby sister Thelma [Ione Cooper] and I went with him. [Father] worked for one of the dairies there so that we could all be there with him and go and visit with him from time to time.

FH:How old was he at that time?

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

RC:He was about nine years old [when] we went to Galen to the sanitarium. A few months went by and he kept begging to go home. We talked to the doctor about it and he said he felt he might as well go home because he wasn't going to live much longer. He should be happy the few months that he had left to live. We took him home. I recall him going out to the barn and playing with the baby chickens. He loved them so much. One night, as we were preparing to go to bed, he called 00:04:00out to my sister [Sadie Rosetta Cooper] to come in his bedroom. She had just started to fall off to sleep and crankily said, "What is it you want?" There wasn't anything more said. We all went to sleep and the next morning when father got up to make the fire he came in and alarmingly said to us, "Delbert is dead." We realized then that he had been calling out to my sister who he was so close to [as he] wanted to tell her that he was going. It was quite a sad thing [that] we had to bury someone we loved so much. [Emotional] I think it was especially 00:05:00hard on mother. [Emotional]

As we grew up and time went by, the folks decided maybe they should [move] up to Canada and try to get a new start there. Everything had gone bad in Montana. We went up there and were getting settled [when] the [Canadian] Government came around checking [on] us to see how many livestock we had, how much machinery, how much money and all this. We didn't have enough of everything in order to meet their quota. So we had to [move] back to Montana.

FH:Did they require a certain amount before they [would] let you immigrate?

RC:That is right. In that area of the country there were big companies [who] 00:06:00owned several thousand acres of land. They would hire people to work for them. I recall one time we lived up in the mountains from Harlem [Montana] and put up hay for these people. We finished this contract and there was another company [who] had us pick up rocks for them.

Later on, we moved back into the city of Harlem and I started school there. We lived in an apartment building. [Moving] up to Canada put me behind a year [in school]. My brothers and sisters helped me get caught up in school by teaching 00:07:00me my ABCs and how to count to a hundred. When I skipped off to school the first day I was saying my ABCs and counting to a hundred and feeling pretty good about it. It didn't seem to put me behind any. I caught up with the children and went on from there. I loved school. I loved my teachers. There was only one [who] you might say we had a personality clash. But school, as I remember it, was wonderful.

One time I went back to visit Montana after we had moved away. I went to an alumni dance they were having. One of the teachers came across the floor and grabbed me up in her arms and said, "Oh, you are just as sweet and lovely as you ever were. The only difference is you don't have your ringlets anymore." [Laughter] Like I say, school was special to me.

FH:Did you [receive] a certificate or diploma from any of your grades?

RC:Yes. When I graduated from [the] eighth grade they had a lovely ceremony for 00:09:00us. We were dressed in lavender and white. Those were our school colors [and] we [received] our diplomas.

FH:Was the trip to Canada a sad thing?

RC:Yes, but I recall it was beautiful country. We learned to love the people up there in the short time we were there. They were fine people.

FH:How were your church activities affected by the places you lived when you were growing up?

RC:In Montana we had to travel quite a ways to go to [The] Church [of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]. We would get into our wagons and travel for hours and hours, it seemed like, to get to church. We would feel so sunburned and wind burned by the time we [arrived] there. I recall some of the apostles coming and talking to us. One time it [was] so hot in the church building. There weren't any trees to protect it. It was right out there in the hot old prairie. The 00:10:00apostle said to us, "Let's go down on the river bank and finish the services." So we all sat down on the river bank and listened to him talk to us. He stood right down by the water and talked up to us on the bank.

I remember him telling us about reverence in Sacrament [Meeting] and what we should be thinking about when we were passing the sacrament, that we should be thinking of Christ and what He had done for us. I remember his beautiful white hair, but I couldn't tell you what his name was.

FH:What church meetings were you able to go to?

RC:We had Sacrament Meeting and Sunday school on the same day. We would all 00:11:00[stay] until those meetings were over. On a different day of the week they would have Mutual [Improvement Association]. But I only attended a very few times because, by the time we did all the chores that had to be done on the ranch, we were just too tired to [go to the meeting].

FH:Were you active in the Sunday school organization?

RC:My father needed a secretary in the Sunday school. He was in the bishopric at the time. He asked me if I wouldn't do it because he thought I had pretty good penmanship and he [thought] that I could do this work. I recall one of the first times the bishop asked me to go around with him to the different Sunday school classes and kind of take a survey on the morale of the Sunday school. I remember 00:12:00we went in to one [small] class and he was asking by a show of hands if they were living The Word of Wisdom. Everybody raised their hand but one little boy. The bishop said, "My goodness, what could you be doing, Johnny, that you wouldn't be living The Word of Wisdom?" He said, "We drink Mormon tea." [Mormon tea is made by pouring boiling water over leaves from the ephedra plant.] I thought the bishop would split his sides to try to keep from laughing right in the boy's face. [Laughter] I just thought that was so sweet and innocent of him.

FH:What do you remember about your father?

RC:I remember father would give his life if necessary for the church. He spent 00:13:00many, many hours and many dollars to further the building up of the church.

FH:What kind of a man was he?

RC:He worked very hard, from four o'clock in the morning until late at night. He had a fiery temper that he had to work with all the time to keep it under control. I think I inherited it from him. Later on, [I] had to do the same thing. He would lay down his life for us and the gospel if necessary. He went on a mission to the south when they had their first baby. They were still living in Idaho and [the church] called him on a [LDS] mission. At the time, he wasn't living The Word of Wisdom. He was irrigating and recalled he had his snuff in 00:14:00his pocket. The bishop said to him, "We want you to go on a mission." He said, "I can't go on a mission. I am not living The Word of Wisdom." [The bishop] said, "Well, we feel like you can if you want to." He said he took that snuff out of his pocket and threw it into the water and that was the end of the tobacco habit. He never took it up again. He said there would be times later on in his life when he would be watering [and] he would automatically reach to get his snuff out of his pocket and it wouldn't be there. [Laughter] You see, if you ever pick up the tobacco habit it is a hard thing to get rid of.

FH:Did he go to the Southern States Mission?

RC:Yes. I remember pictures of him with the missionary group he was with. He had a moustache that made him look [very] attractive.

FH:Was he there under President [Charles] Callis?

RC:I don't recall who [the president] was. I remember him telling me about going 00:15:00to school [at] the Weber Stake Academy [Ogden, Weber County, Utah]. At that time, they used to have some of their high school [classes] in a [small] college -- [all] the [classes] thrown in together. He said when he first started school there they required him [to] take a class in religion. He said that he didn't want to do this because he didn't have time for it. He wanted to learn how to make money to support his family. [He was told] it was a requirement that had to be met. David O. McKay was one of the teachers at the school. He said, "Send 00:16:00Cooper in to me and if he can give me a good reason why he shouldn't take this class we will have a debate and we will let him go without it." Dad just thought this was great. He could debate anybody on a question like that. [Laughter] The more he prepared his talk to give, the more he convinced himself that he needed this course in religion. He attributes any religion he ever had in his life to the fact that David O. McKay helped him to see that he did need it.

FH:Tell about your mother.

RC:I guess, like most girls do, they think of mother as being gentle, kind and the many hours they sit by your bed [emotional] when you are ill and how much they work to help everybody, not just the children, but father and even neighbors [who] need help. [Emotional] If there was anybody ill in the neighborhood, she was right there to help them. I recall when we were in a mess after mother died that one of the girls came to me and said, "Do you know that I feel like the only reason my little girl is alive today is because of what your 00:18:00mother did for her." She always loved to nurse the children and help them to get better. [Emotional]

FH:How many children did your mother have?

RC:She had nine [children who] lived and one [baby] that was stillborn.

FH:Would you tell about them?

RC:I have already told you about Delbert. It was Sadie [who] was next to him. They dearly loved one another. She was sort of a stand-in mother to us, too, because mother had so many children and so many things to do that she acted as a second mother to us. We have always felt that way toward her. However, she has never grown up in the church. She married a man out of the church. When we were living in Montana, a good share of the people there were non-members. There were 00:19:00very few people who were members of the church there. We feel like she had qualities of her own. It is hard to explain. She had such a giving heart for one thing. She did for mother and dad things that none of the rest of us children ever did.

When I was grown and had moved to California, I [received] word from the folks that my brother, David [Isaac Cooper], had died. He had been killed in a mine accident. This was during the early part of World War II. Some saboteurs came in and tried to do damage in the mine. My brother was a foreman. [Some miners] sent 00:20:00up for extra dynamite and he refused to let them have it. They called him and asked him to come down and help them dump some ore cars because one of the men wasn't there that day. This is what they told him, anyhow. When he [went] down there helping them, one of the other fellows up inside of the mine turned an ore car loose on him. He couldn't hear it coming because of the noise of the dumping of the ore in front of him. This ore car was running right to him.

I couldn't go home because we had just [moved to] California and [we] didn't have the money to go home to [see] him buried. Later on, we moved to Washington. His son [David Eugene Cooper] came to visit with us. I discovered that all these years, from the time he was a little toddler, he had it in his mind that he would find the man [who] had killed his father and would kill him. As soon as I 00:21:00realized what he had in his mind, I explained to him that certainly this isn't what his father would want. I said, "You want to be with your father some day, don't you? When you go on the other side, you want to be with your father, don't you?" "Oh yes," he wanted this. I said, "This wouldn't be the way to do it because this would send you to another place where you would never see your father. Your father would want you to go on with your life, have a family and a wife that you love and make the most out of your life. When you get on the other side with him, all these things will be made known to you -- why this had to be. You can be with your father then."

FH:His father was actually a casualty of war, in a sense.

RC:Yes, he was. So this is what he did. He left my home and married a girl that he loved. They have five boys and a little girl now. He is very happy in the work he is doing. I feel that turned out fine.

FH:You were an instrument for much good there.

RC:I hope so.

FH:What about the rest of the family?

RC:My brother, "Glen" [Glendon LaVerl Cooper], worked hand-in-hand with my father on the farm. He was one of the older boys. In fact, I think he was so much like my father that they didn't get along too well in some ways. He was mechanically minded and [took care of] all the machinery on the place --the car, 00:23:00the trucks, anything that was mechanical. My brother, [William] Gerald [Cooper], was more adapted to doing things with the animals. If there were any sick animals he knew just what to do, so he took care of them. My baby sister, Thelma [Ione Cooper], we grew up [very] close. In fact, with all the horses we had, she still had to be on the same horse I was just to be that close to me. She would ride along behind. Father would send us out to get some cattle he hadn't been able to find when he had driven in the others. Sometimes we would be gone all day looking for these cattle and he would say, "Don't come back until you find them." We took his word for it. We wouldn't come back sometimes until it was 00:24:00quite late and practically have to pack our little pony home because he was tired out, too! [Laughter]

I remember one time we were going out and it was so terribly hot out on the prairie. We thought: if it would just rain a little bit and cool it off. I said, "I have an idea. Maybe if we would sing loud enough about the rain --rain, rain, when are you going to rain again, rain --maybe it would rain." So this is what we did. We were riding along on this pony singing this song just as loud as we could sing. What do you know? It started raining. [Laughter] I thought we would drown before we [arrived] home!

FH:Were there any faith-promoting incidents in your life?

RC:I forgot to mention two of the children [who] died prior to my remembrance. The other children had told me about [them]. One was Ruby [Arvilla Cooper]. She was out watching the men put up hay. The dairy cow [became] skittish and ran and broke the cable. The pole turned around and came down on my little sister's head and crushed her head. I remember mother saying that she was such a good little girl from the time she was born that she felt like she didn't need to live any longer. She was too perfect for life and so this was the reason, she felt, she was taken this early. She was only two or three years old at the time. [Emotional]

With [Mary] Edna [Cooper], she said the same thing. Not only was she good, but she was exceptionally brilliant. She used a vocabulary that was very outstanding for a child her age, along with the understanding that she had of everything around her. It was just amazing.

For the faith-promoting incidents, I think [what] that helped me most in life was when we went up to Canada with a caravan of people to the [Cardston] Temple there. I went along for the ride more than anything to see the country [area, the] new things and have a new experience. When we stepped into the temple I 00:27:00knew that this was something greater than anything in life, that there was a spiritual tug there that I didn't understand at the time. I went in and did eleven baptisms. There was a lady, Mrs. Rowley, [who] had a baby with her [who] needed to be tended. So I took care of the baby while she went through several sessions. [At] one of the evening sessions they gathered the people from the caravan; the adults, and President Wood and some of the other people of the town were gathered in the prayer room upstairs. President Wood's son came back. He 00:28:00had passed on. He came back with many of the spirits from heaven [that] came to thank them for the work that they had done. People from the outlying district, from the farms, called in and asked if the temple was on fire because there were beams of light showing out from the temple way out into the countryside. They were afraid the temple was on fire. President Wood said this was the light from the spirits [who] had come back to the temple. This was [an event that] I always remembered.

FH:Did you see this [event]?

RC:No. I didn't see this. Father was there and I was tending the baby so this lady could be there, too. They told us about it later on. It always stuck in my mind as being a wonderful spiritual [event] something that I wanted to be able 00:29:00to take part in some day.

FH:President Wood was a grand person.

RC:Yes. I don't know whether I should tell this [now] or not. Later on, [after] we [were] married in the Salt Lake Temple, we went up to Canada to have our adopted son [Ronald Callahan] sealed to us. I had been quite heavy in my heart with the thought that I wasn't able to have any children. [I] felt like I was cheating my husband [Jesse "Jess" Andrew Callahan]. I felt like he would have been a lot better off if he would have had someone else. As I knelt there at the altar, President Wood looked right deep into my soul and he saw all. [Emotional] 00:30:00He told my husband that I was a choice spirit. This helped me to carry on. He told me what I was thinking and went on to tell my husband I was a choice spirit. That morning when we went to the temple he said, "I have seen you before." I said, "Maybe when I was a child." He said, "No, it didn't seem to be at that time." So at the end of the day as he was greeting everybody and we were going our various ways to our homes, he said, "I remember now where I saw you. It was in the spirit world." As [events] happened in [my] life later on, I always recalled this -- that I had associated with people that wonderful.

FH:Did you have sickness in your younger years?

RC:Yes. Finally, my father heard about some land in Oregon that was being developed [with] a new irrigation system. He went up ahead of the family and discovered it was good thing. He didn't [buy] sight unseen this time. He purchased some land in a place that had a home on it. Later on, he sent for the rest of the family [and] part of us went [there]. My oldest sister was married 00:32:00and her [young] family went up. They asked me if I didn't want to go with them [so I did]. My mother, my baby sister and one of my brothers stayed behind at this time and we went ahead.

I would like to tell about an incident just to show you the difference between Montana and Oregon and what a great thrill it was to us. All the years that we lived in Montana the only fruit that was available were the ones we could buy at the store which, of course, with a big family we just never did get any. Once in awhile, I remember, mother would say, "I was able to save a little money from the egg money. Should we go to the show or should we get some cherries?" We would always say [that] cherries were what we would like to have. I remember at the time we moved into Oregon there, we stayed in [a] motel until we could get 00:33:00into our home. The lady [who] was living in the home that we had purchased had to have time to get out. My sister sent me over to the store with a dime to get us a couple of apples.

[END OF TAPE ONE -- SIDE ONE]

RC:I went over and laid the dime down on the counter and asked for apples. He [took] out a big ten pound bag and put in apples, apples, apples. My eyes just bugged out, my heart hammered! I was thrilled to death to think of all these apples. I said, "Are you sure? I only have a dime." "Yes, dear," he said. He kept putting in apples and it was stacked way up over [the top]. I could hardly 00:34:00get home with them. I tell you, we really rejoiced with so much food!

FH:Did you go to live in Oregon?

RC:That is right. I remember my baby sister, [Thelma, who] was back in Montana wrote and asked me to tell her what it was like. To me it was heaven! We had fruit trees, berries, 120 acres of grazing land, beautiful soil and a nice big home. Compared with the homes today I guess you wouldn't say it was too great, but to us at that time it was wonderful because there was room for everybody. 00:35:00Even though we had a bathroom where we had to heat the water and carry it into the tub, still it was a luxury to be able to bathe in privacy and bathe more often. I wrote and told her it was really great. [Laughter]

I found out from this experience that each one of us sees things differently because when she came she was quite disappointed. [When] we went to school there we discovered the climate was so much milder. We didn't have to wear the heavy clothing [as] we had in Montana to keep from freezing in the blizzards when we would come home from school. There were times in Montana when I would wear slacks to keep from freezing. I was quite embarrassed one time when the 00:36:00principal called me in and said, "No, we don't wear slacks here. The girls wear skirts and blouses and this type of thing." [When] we went to school there my baby sister [Thelma] went into high school. I remember the principal calling her in. They kind of had an interview with them when they started high school. He said, "Now, if you can do as [well] as your sister has done in high school, there won't be any problem at all." I smiled to myself. I knew she had skipped the fourth grade. She was way ahead of me as far as school was concerned. I was happy to know that he felt like I was a good student just the same.

It seemed like it was harder and harder for me to keep up [in school]. I wanted to take part in everything. I didn't want to miss out on anything. I was going 00:37:00to Mutual, Sunday school and Sacrament Meetings. I was librarian and belonged to the pep club in school. I was in the plays. Finally, I said to mother, "I am going to have to see a doctor. There is something wrong. It seems like it is harder and harder for me to keep up." So I went through a series of tests. Finally, our old family doctor said to mother with tears in his eyes, "She has tuberculosis." My mother said, "What are we going to do? We can't send her to a sanitarium. We don't have the money." He said, "The only thing you can do right now is to see that she gets plenty of bed rest and plenty of good food. She will have to be kept away from the other children in the family."

We had a big ranch and there was one big home and two smaller homes on it. My older sister lived in [one and] one of my brothers lived in the other one. There were a number of children in this one ranch and I was always taking care of their children, mainly together. When we came home from the doctor, my sisters-in-law, brother and all of them gathered around and said, "What is the matter with her?" Mother said, "She has tuberculosis." They grabbed the children and pulled them back from me right away. They knew that was something that could be passed on and they didn't want the children to have it. I had not been too frightened until then. When this happened, I realized that I was going to be shut off from being able to love my little nieces and nephews. I felt like I wanted to lie down and die.

Dad had the insight to see the [problem] right away. He said, "Mother, let's go in the bedroom and pray." He put his arm around me and we walked in the bedroom 00:39:00and kept the rest of them out. He prayed that I would be alright. Right away, this fear left me and I got up. I knew it would be alright. I spent a number of months in bed there. I could see I wasn't going to get any [better] this way; that I had to have more help.

I went to one of my high school teachers. I told her that I needed to know [of a] sanitarium I could go to and some way I could get there without getting the money from my parents because they didn't have it. She said there was a state sanitarium that I could go to and she would help me find the channels I would [need to] go through to do this. She sent me over to Ontario [Oregon] to the 00:40:00state nurse over there. She started going through the channels to get me in and said there would be a waiting period for me. After a time, she called me and said it was my time and I could go up to the sanitarium and stay there until I [was] better.

When my parents bid me good-bye and put me on the train [there was] thought [that] they would never see me again because tuberculosis then was something you didn't overcome too rapidly. I knew everything was going to be alright. I went up there happy just to get a good rest and I would be out of there pretty soon. I cooperated with the doctors and did everything they told me to [do]. I 00:41:00remember they would take us up in our beds to chapel, they called it, on Sundays. We would sing and have different preachers come in and give a sermon for the day.

I started observing the people around me. It didn't seem like I had the problems that they had. I asked to see the doctor. They finally let me see him. I said, "Doctor, I don't feel like I have tuberculosis like these other people have." He examined me and said, "I don't understand it. I can't see that you have tuberculosis. If you ever did have it, maybe the bed rest at home or something has alleviated it." I knew, of course, that Heavenly Father had helped [me] to 00:42:00overcome it. He said, "We must get you out of here as rapidly as we can because you might pick it up from some of the other patients." He put me out in the out-patient area where they were playing ball [as] and they had progressed this much.

I sent home for money. My parents didn't have money for me to come home on. One of the doctors there was [very] kind and said, "I will send you home. Maybe your folks can send me money later on." So he sent me home. Before I left, he said to me, "Now this is one thing you must remember. You must have rest every afternoon." I remembered at the hospital there everybody would lie down and rest every afternoon whether it was the cook, the janitor [or] the man [who] worked in the yard. He said this was one of the reasons for so much of the disease in 00:43:00the world -- because people did not rest enough. Then he said, "After you become forty years old, this will be the most dangerous part of your life as far as this tuberculosis is. It is all encased now, but it could break out if anything happened to cause too much distress."

I left and went home on the train again. I [arrived] home at night. It was quite late in the evening and I remember they were having a dance at the only dance hall we had in that area of the country. I walked by thinking how lucky I was to be out in the world again. The moon shone so beautifully. I walked home and the 00:44:00first thing [after] I opened the door, and my baby sister [Thelma] came running out and said, "Oh "Sis", I am so glad you are home." She had some girl problems she needed to know about. She said I would have the answers. I was [very] happy to be home.

The next day, the boy I had been going with a few times before I went up to the sanitarium came down to see me. It wasn't anything serious yet. He took me to church and it seemed like we spent more and more time together. I guess he had thought before I had even gone to the sanitarium that I was going to be the girl he was going to marry. I didn't know this, of course. We went to Mutual 00:45:00together. There were about six of us couples [who] ran around together. As years went by, each one of them married. In fact, we changed around from one couple to another. We went with different ones to the Gold and Green Balls [event for LDS young people] and different [events]. Finally, I wound up going with "Jess."

In fact, when I was sixteen, he asked me to marry him one time when we had gone to a dance. He said, "Come out in the car. I want to talk to you." He asked me to marry him. I told him quite frankly that I didn't know what love was and I felt I was too young to know. I felt like I wanted to finish school before I 00:46:00married anyway. Then he said something that made me realize [how] he was different than just the average person. He said, "If I ever have a problem, I always go to Heavenly Father and ask Him. You ask Him if it is right that you should marry me. If it is, fine [or] if it isn't, then you will know [inaudible]. I want to be married in the temple. I feel like you are a good clean girl and you can do this. If you aren't, I want to know." I thought: goodness that is almost like being treated like a queen to be asked to be married in the temple. I felt he must be a different boy than just the average one because usually they just talk about frivolous things and show off.

We went together for about two years. He was helping his parents, trying to help his brothers and sisters through their [education] and [trying] to get started on new land. [It] seemed like all his paycheck went for these things and we would just barely be able to squeeze out a little bit to go to a show once in awhile. Finally, my sister [Sadie] said to me, ""Sis," people are beginning to talk. You can't go on like this anymore. You are going to have to go ahead and be married and live together like you should. This isn't right." My husband said, "My paycheck will be coming tomorrow. Let's just go and get married and not let anybody know about it or they will need the money and we won't have it 00:48:00to do with."

We just couldn't leave everybody out. We had to tell his mother [Jessie Myrtle (Johnson) Callahan]. She is so precious and so is mine. The men were in the fields and we let them go ahead with their work. We went over to [see] President [Scott B.] Brown. He was the bishop over at Weiser, Idaho. We went to him and had him marry us [on November 7, 1939]. I remember his wife was [very] sweet. She didn't think [this] was quite the way it should be, so she went out and [brought] a bouquet of roses for me to hold. [She] stood [my] mother on one side and [Jesse's] mother on the other side of us and he proceeded with the ceremony.

We went home to my folks' place and my two sisters-in-law [Gladys and DeLoris] 00:49:00had prepared a wedding dinner for us. We had a lovely wedding dinner. We didn't even have the price for a home at the time or money for a place to rent at the time. I [had] an idea of using a trailer house that was in the neighborhood there. It had been abandoned. I told my father about it and he said, "That man owes me money. I will get it from him and then we can make it right later on between us." So that is what we did. We started out in a little trailer house. We fixed it up the best we could and made a little home out of it.

Later on, we moved up into Brogan [Oregon] and worked hauling logs and lumber 00:50:00[from] the sawmill to the market. We lived there for a time. There was no way to go to church [and] there was no church [right] there. This wasn't good at all because we had always been affiliated with the church, always busy and happy. He [became] more and more unhappy there. After awhile, we left there altogether and went back down into the valley to Vale [Oregon], a neighboring town to my parents. We worked in the potatoes and harvesting the crops there.

When the sugar factory opened again we went back to Nampa [Idaho] and worked in the sugar factory there. Then World War II [started] and they were training 00:51:00people [for] aircraft work. They had a school over [in] Ontario [Oregon]. My husband went over there and [received] training. He went on ahead after he finished the school [to work for] the Lockheed Aircraft [Corporation ]. In fact, he and his brother hitchhiked to California where his oldest brother [Irvin Callahan] was living.

FH:Was this in Burbank [California]?

RC:Yes, [in] Burbank. They lived with [their brother]. Later on, when he [had] money ahead he sent for me to come. I went down and this was really an experience for me because I had never been in a big city before in my life. Here 00:52:00I was, going to a big city all alone. [Laughter] I remember dad telling me, like a [young] child, as he put me on the train, "Now, don't talk to strangers," and all this type of [instructions]. When one of the strangers did try to talk to me I was so frightened. It was [very] silly. I remember he had a sick child in his arms and he didn't know what to do with [the child]. He thought maybe I could help him. I was able to help him and discovered later on that he owned a chain of beaneries through California. He invited us to visit with him when we [were] settled. We never did.

When we [arrived] in Los Angeles [California] I thought: how am I going to get out to Burbank. I didn't have the slightest idea [about] transportation. I recalled that they had talked about taking buses out from Los Angeles in the 00:53:00letters they had written to me prior to going down there. I thought I better get a bus. So I went to [the] information [desk] and asked where I should go to get a bus? What bus to take and those types of [questions]. They told me where to go. I [went] out on the streets and people [were] running [in] all directions, hurrying and scurrying. I thought: goodness sakes! How will I know where this street is? I found it finally and caught my bus.

When I got on the bus we traveled for miles and miles. Finally, I stepped up to the bus driver [because] I felt surely we must have passed the place by now. I told the bus driver the address I was going to and said, "Will you please let me off at this address? I don't know where it is and it seems to me maybe we have already passed it." I guess I really looked funny because he just laughed. I was such a frightened little thing with a little bonnet on my head clutching my little purse to my side. [Laughter] He told me about it later that he was [very] tickled from this little [girl] from the country. [Laughter] He said, "Look, 00:54:00lady. I don't think I better let you off in that town this time of night. It is getting quite late. There is a lot of riff-raff on the streets and I don't know for sure whether you are going to be able to get into your home when you do find it. I will take you out to the end of the line and I will bring you back in my car."

I trusted him implicitly. But I thought of it later after I met some of those people from California and it really frightened me what I did. [Laughter] He took me out to the end of the line and [brought] me back in his car. When he pulled up in front of the house he said, "Now you go in and see if everybody is there and everything is alright." Just before I got out he pulled me over to the side and said, "Aren't you even going to give me a little kiss for this?" Then I 00:55:00was frightened! [Laughter] I went in and found them all there. It was great to be in California [with] all the different types of life.

I remember the smell of flowers [was] so fragrant, the smell of gardenias and night-blooming jasmine, big hedges of geraniums and beautiful vines that grew over the garages. I thought it was just beautiful. By this time, the boys had gathered quite a group of boys living in this big house that he had rented. There was a girl and her brother [who] were living there also. They were [working] on all different shifts and they needed some cooks. They didn't have time to cook for themselves. I started cooking for them and, later on, my 00:56:00husband's sister came. Between the two of us we [did the] cooking for the boys.

I guess we really amused the boys [who] had lived in the city all their lives because we did things so differently. For instance, we thought it was a shame if you went to the store to buy bread. You just had to bake bread. They did enjoy home-baked bread, but when you send it in a lunch and it lies around for several hours, for instance, with tuna fish, it doesn't taste so good. I remember one Bohemian boy [who] was living there didn't want to hurt my feelings. He said, "Ruth, you spend so many hours baking bread. You can just pick it up over here [at] the bakery." He showed me the bakery, what it was like and how inexpensive 00:57:00the bread was. He said, "We could get the bread there so much easier and you wouldn't have to spend all these hours doing that and you could go some place and have more fun." He started taking us there. He was the only one of the group [who] had a car. He started taking all the groups in the house. When he had a weekend off, he started taking us around [to the] interesting places to see, to Griffith Park. I can't think of [one of] the places now. It was a place that made movies quite often. Some were Walt Disney movies.

FH:[Was it] Studio City?

RC:No. It was a place out in the country around a big lake. We had a lot of fun going [to] these different places. He took us out to an [amusement park] out at an ocean beach pier and we rode on rides that we had never ridden before. I 00:58:00remember one time we went on the roller coaster. We thought it would be a great thing to get on the back. Wow! [Laughter] When I got off, all I could do was go around with my hands on my head trying to hold it down on my shoulders. [Laughter]

FH:When was this?

RC:This was during the [early] part of World War II. Later on, I [had] a job working in a drugstore [and] worked there for a time. The man [owner] told me before that he had a girl [working] there [who] had gone into another job. I thought he had just had the one girl, but discovered later on he had had two 00:59:00girls working there. I was trying to do all [the work] and I just couldn't do it. It was too much work for me, so I [took] a job in [a] vitamin plant in Los Angeles. I had to take a trolley car from Burbank to Los Angeles. I remember one time when we were coming home from work, a little old lady got on the trolley. I thought: a dear little old lady like that, I sure would be happy if someone would get up and let my mother sit down. So I [stood] up and let her sit down. All the people on the bus looked at me just like hmm? What did she do, but reach inside of her coat and pull out a little whiskey flask and had a shot of whiskey. [Laughter] From then on, I wasn't so kind to little old ladies [who] got on the trolley. [Laughter]

I remember Jesse's sister, Dawna [Callahan], and I [went] on the trolley for the first time to go to a new job. We were happy and jostling around and making jokes. Everybody on the trolley looked at us so somber. We wondered [if they thought something] was the matter with us or was something the matter with them. After a few years riding on that trolley, we discovered what was the matter with them. [Laughter] They were so tired that that was all they could do. They couldn't laugh and joke like we were [doing].

After we put in a few months there, we discovered quite a few things about vitamins. They had us taking a one-a-day vitamin as an experiment on the people working there. Later on, I went to work at Lockheed Aircraft [Corporation and] I 01:01:00discovered the value of these vitamins when I started going without them. I discovered that I was tired all the time. When the girl [who] I had been working with came to work at Lockheed, [she] asked me how I was feeling. I told her I wasn't feeling too well. She said, "Are you taking your one-a-day vitamins?" I said, "No. I didn't think it was necessary." She said, "Try them for awhile. You have some left, haven't you?" I said yes, I did. So I discovered the value of vitamins, not the synthetic ones, but the ones from the natural sources. I saw the way they were made there at the plant so I knew they were taken from natural sources. They even had a vitamin there that we [would] put into a [garden] hose and spray the lawn and roses where we were living. I thought it was kind of 01:02:00ridiculous at the time, but you ought to see how those [plants] perked up and [began] looking so green and beautiful.

After we had worked there for awhile, one night and my husband and I were walking out to the car to go home. He started to complain I was walking too fast. He has always been energetic, full of life and moving too fast for me. So I couldn't figure this out. He put his arm around me and started to lean on me a little heavier and a little heavier. Finally, we got in the car and he drove home. He would keep leaning over on the side of the car and it really frightened me. I wondered if we would get through all that traffic. We [arrived] home and went to bed. In the middle of the night he woke up, went into the bathroom and I heard him fall on the floor. I went in there and he had passed out. I finally 01:03:00got him back into bed and he started spewing blood just like a geyser right up to the ceiling. Then he froze and couldn't get the rest of it out. His face froze into position where he couldn't get it out and had to heave on the side of his face. [I] turned him over [to] get it out of him. I hurried and called the doctor.

When I first called him, it was quite late at night. The doctor said, "He will be alright until I can see him in the morning." I said, "I don't know, doctor. I am frightened. I don't like the look of things here." He came over finally, and he looked. I had hurried and gathered up the sheets that he had spewed the blood all over, put them into the tub and drew cold water on them right away because I didn't want him to see this. I was afraid it would frighten him and make him 01:04:00worse. So when the doctor came, he examined him and said, "Oh, he is going to be alright. Just some milk and a sippy-diet and he will be alright." He went into the bathroom to wash his hands and saw all [the] blood in the bathtub. He said, "My Lord, lady, where did this come from?" I said, "This is what I am telling you. He spit all this up." Then he [became] frightened. He said, "Get an ambulance right away."

We [took] him down to the hospital. When they examined him he only had a very little bit of blood left. They started giving him transfusions. I sat with him through the night. Every time I would try to move to go get a drink of water or anything, he would just hang onto me like it meant his life if I were to move. He said later on he just felt like he drew strength from me to keep alive. I 01:05:00guess this is what did keep him alive because he had so little blood.

He had an ulcer operation. The [doctor who] worked on him had been called in to work [at the hospital] again [after] he had retired. Because of the war they had sent all the doctors who had been practicing regularly overseas and so they called him back into service. He didn't know any of the new techniques [for] operating, so he just did the best he could. It didn't prove to be successful. A few months later he was bleeding again, hemorrhaging internally.

By this time, we had gone back to Oregon and put in a campaign there at the 01:06:00sugar factory. I had gone to work in the sugar factory, too. I remember when I asked Mr. Brown for a job. He said, "We are just not hiring girls in here." I said, "You need help, don't you?" He said, "Yes." I said, "They saw this out in the aircraft [industry] too. At first they didn't want to hire the girls either, but they [became] desperate and they found out that they could do jobs that some of the men couldn't [or] hadn't done in the past. They could do them just as good." He said, "Well, with that spirit I can't [argue] anymore [but] give you a chance at it." So I worked a campaign there on the line roll.

[END OF TAPE ONE -- SIDE TWO]

RC:-- by certain indicators. What would you call that?

FH:[Would it be] dials?

RC:Dials that showed what was going on with the line rolls so I would know how to control it. Later on, he told my brother [who] worked there that I was one of the best operators that had ever worked there.

[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF]

RC:After we finished the campaign, actually it was about January, these people [who] we were renting the house from in Oregon needed to get back into it. They had been running a hotel, but it hadn't proven to be successful so they needed to get back into their own home. This put us out and there was absolutely no place to live. We started inquiring around where we could get work and a place to live. We sent [word] back to Los Angeles, or to Burbank, to see if we could 01:08:00get back in there and they said yes. In fact, they would even raise our pay if we would come back there. Then we thought: we didn't want to go back to all that hurrying and scurrying again. We just couldn't do it. We wrote up to Washington and asked about jobs up there in the aircraft [industry]. [The] Boeing [Company] said yes, they would hire us immediately and guaranteed us housing when we [arrived]. Of course, we had our records sent up there from Burbank and they knew what kind of work we had been doing. We went up there with this in mind.

As we were going up there, my husband's stomach started feeling bad again. By the time we had [arrived in] Olympia [Washington], he felt like he could hardly 01:09:00make it on to Tacoma [Washington]. He did [manage] until we got into Tacoma [when] I remembered that a relative of my oldest sister [Sadie] lived there. So we went to their home. In fact, he was the son of our old family doctor in Montana. We felt quite, at least I did, well-acquainted with them and close enough to them that I could ask them [if we could] stay in their home for a few days. They had a nice big home and plenty of room so we didn't put them out any.

Then we took my husband right straight to the hospital. He was hemorrhaging internally and was going to have [to have an] operation. We tried to find somebody [who] was affiliated with the church [to] come and administer to him. 01:10:00That sure was an experience -- to try and find somebody in a big town like that. You would think they would be listed in the telephone directory, but they weren't. Jeff [inaudible] was the man we stayed with, worked at the [United States] Post Office, so he met a lot of people every day. He would ask different ones who came in. He asked, "Do you know anybody that belongs to the Mormon Church?" He finally found someone to come up and administer to [my husband]. He proved to be one of our life-long friends.

He was operated on and then we went to [work] with Boeing. We discovered they didn't have the housing they [promised] us in the first place at all. There was nothing to do, but to buy a home then. So we went out looking for a home. All 01:11:00the places we saw, some of them were just terrific, the prices they were asking for them and the poor material that was in them. We finally found a little place out in the woods, out toward Fort Lewis [Washington], by the military reservation that was out in the trees up there. The material in it was new at least. Some of the floors weren't too level because they didn't have any foundation under them. We thought we will put a foundation on it and we will make this do until the war is over. Then we will go home to Oregon and get the farm we were going to have.

This is what we did. He went to work for the [United States] Naval Base [in Tacoma, Washington]. I went to work in the office at the same place. They had 01:12:00set up a base over [in] Hawaii and wanted me to go over there to help get that set up, but my husband said he didn't want to go so we didn't go over there. The people in the church just took us in and loved us so wonderfully. They never asked any questions, whether we were millionaires or ditch-diggers. We were just grateful to them. They gave us [positions] working in the church right away. We worked in the Mutual [Improvement Association] to start with, teaching the junior girls. Later on, when it was changed, they put me in the presidency. I was the second counselor in the presidency of the Mutual.

We met a lady [who] proved to be one of our good friends. I had told her that we never had any children and we couldn't understand why we hadn't had any. She said, "Have you ever thought of adopting?" I said, "Goodness, I have thought of everything, but nothing seemed to work out." She said, "I have a little girl [who] is boarding at my house that has a little baby. She has been kind of thinking about letting it go for adoption. I would like you to come over and meet her." She called me on the telephone and told me that the girl wanted to meet us and see what we were like.

When Jesse [came] home from work that night we went right over, just thrilled to 01:14:00death with the idea that maybe we were going to get a baby. First thing [when] she saw Jesse she said, "Why he looks just like my brother." She was an Irish girl, too. She said he looked so much like her brother. This was a good point for us to start with. Then she discovered that we were members of the LDS Church and this made her even happier. She said that she had been raised without any religion in her life. Her mother had married and remarried so many times that things just hadn't been good. She wanted her boy to be raised in a better atmosphere than [she] was. She thought it would be [very] good if he was to be raised in the church.

We saw a lawyer and [had] the adoption taken care of. I was crying and the girl 01:15:00didn't even shed a tear in the adoption proceedings. I discovered later on that she was [the] type of girl that didn't show her emotions to the people, but it hurt her inside terribly. I will always be thankful to her and always love her for what she did for us.

We took little [Ronald] "Ronny" [Callahan] into our home. He is a source of light and joy to us at all times. I remember the lawyer saying when we [received] the baby, "I think this is wonderful that you would take this little boy into your home." I had never thought of it from that standpoint. I just always thought how lucky we were to have such a wonderful boy. I took him up for a checkup. The doctor thumped him on the chest and rubbed his back and he said, 01:16:00"My, you couldn't have done a better job yourself with this little boy. He is really great."

Later on, when I met his mother she was working in a store of this same friend that we had contacted for the adoption. I asked her if she was very sorry that she had let us take "Ronny" and what he seemed like to her. She said he had really seemed more like a little brother to her than her own son because she had been so young when she had him and then she had to turn him right over to her sister to go out to try to find work. She never had him with her long enough to form any real attachment.

We asked her what had happened. She said that she had married this boy in good faith. They were married and he was sent overseas in the [United States] Army. She asked for [money] to support "Ronny" and [the Army] said they didn't have any record of him being married at all. She went to [The American] Red Cross and told them the story. They started an investigation and found out that he had pulled [used] a fake preacher on her and they weren't married at all. He and this little girlfriend hadn't been married at all. She was just nineteen [years old] and [had] no training in the business world so she just couldn't support him. She let us have him and we have sure been happy that she did.

Then we could see that little "Ronny" needed companionship with other children, 01:18:00so we went [and] tried to adopt another child. We went to the welfare agency and they processed [our application] for nearly three years before they finally [had] a child they thought would be appropriate for us. She [the welfare worker] came out to the house and told me that she had a child for me. By that time, I was starting to show that I was pregnant. She said she couldn't let us have him. I said, "After all, we have waited all these years." Surely she could let us have the baby [who] would be a companion to "Ronny." "No, we just couldn't do this. There are too many people [who] couldn't have them." Of course, I understood. I knew that someone else should have the child. I have thought since it was probably an answer to a prayer because I had prayed that if the child was 01:19:00right for our family that we should have him, and if it wasn't something else would happen. Of course, something else did happen. I carried a baby [Yvonne Callahan] of my own.

During these years, I had taken different children into our home. Either their parents would be getting a divorce or they would need a home to live in for a few months. I remember we had this little boy and girl in our home one time. When the one parent took the child, "Ronny" cried in the night. He said, "Oh, I miss you so," and went on like this. I walked up and down the hall that night and cried myself sick. I felt like I was cheating "Ronny" so much. [Emotional] I 01:20:00prayed with all my heart. [Emotional] I think this was the answer to my prayers that I had this little girl.

It brings to my mind, too, that prior to this time I had been talking to a patriarch about wondering why my blessing hadn't been fulfilled that I had [received] just before we were married. It promised me there that I would have children. There was one little clause in there I had missed all these years and never noticed. It said: "--if this, the greatest of all blessings, was withheld from you that it is for a purpose and will be given to you as the Lord sees fit." The patriarch gave me a blessing that I would have a child or have 01:21:00children. This was another thing that I feel was the reason that I did finally have my children.

When we discovered that Yvonne [Callahan] was [going to be a] breech birth and that I would have to have it Caesarian, we felt like this [would] probably be the last child we would have. In fact, the doctor felt this way, too. After she was a couple of years old, we discovered I was carrying another baby. [Laughter] [We were] thrilled and happy [about] it. Still, we couldn't realize we were going to have any more. We just felt like each one would be the [last] one. We would sell the baby furniture and give away the clothes every time. What do you know -- here I would be carrying another baby.

When I finally started carrying Gary [Callahan], I went to the doctor. He was a young doctor in the clinic. He was very abrupt about what he had to say. He just laid it right on the line. He said, "You can just [as well] put your head on a railroad track this time, lady. You don't stand a chance." But you know, that didn't frighten me at all. I just felt just calm and good inside. I just knew everything was going to be fine. He said, "The only way we are going to get you through this pregnancy is for you to call me at any hour of the day or night if anything goes wrong. I want you to be sure and do this." So I did everything he asked me to. I kept on my diet and took my Vitamin B to help make the nervous system strong and healthy in the last two months of the pregnancy.

He came right on through right up to the last day. We counted the days off when he would be delivered. He said when he took the knife to me I just split wide open and just barely made it. He could see that I just couldn't dare go through this anymore. They said that they felt that I should have an operation where I couldn't have any children anymore. My husband was [very] upset about it and he said, no, he felt like it should be him instead of me. The doctor talked to us each one privately. He told us that it would destroy the ego of a man which was a thing that they needed to sustain them in life. He felt like I could do it 01:24:00easier where it wouldn't hurt me. So this is what we did.

For awhile, I really worried about this and wondered if God would be displeased with me for having done this. Yet, I realized that I had to live to help to raise the children. So I finally conceded to it, went along and did the best I could. I was teaching in Primary by now. I had taught a number of years. When Gary was born, we felt that our cup was running over, that everything was perfect.

FH:How many children of your own did you have?

RC:One girl and three boys [Yvonne, Andrew Cooper, Kevin Cooper and Gary Cooper.] I remember in our prayers individually, my husband and I knelt by the 01:25:00bed and we dedicated our lives [emotional] to Him. It seems like when you ask for blessings or are thankful for blessings, you get more trials to prove you. After the baby was born I had had a fourth Caesarian. I was quite weak and needed help and didn't have any folks around to help [me]. Jesse was helping as 01:26:00much as he could and still holding down his job. I will be darned if the [children] didn't have chicken pox, measles and mumps one after another. For a three-month period, one after another came down and [would] be sick. It really kept me weak all [the] time because I couldn't get myself built up and [was] not resting.

They closed down the mill where he was working and had the millwrights working [on] repairs. He was up in the top of the sawmill on some high work that he did. He was never afraid of doing [work like that]. He would walk around on those beams like he was a cat and never think anything of it. This time they had put 01:27:00in a new gas saw. They were trying [it] out down below him. The other fellow who had been up there working with him had gone down to get some supplies. By this time, there were enough gas fumes that had [risen] up in the top of the building where he was working [that] it gassed him and he fell. The men said he was so thoroughly out that when he fell, they thought it was just an old coat that someone had thrown down. [They thought]: maybe a man had had a coat on, it was too warm and he threw it down.

This was on the Fourth of July, one of the hottest days of the year. Between the heat and gas it really [affected] him. He fell on a steel cylinder. It had a bolt- head sticking out and this went into his brain and paralyzed him on his left side. We didn't know until the next day what was going to be the outcome. 01:28:00They had him on the operating table for hours and hours and there wasn't too much they could do for him because he bled so badly. They didn't dare cut into him to relieve the pressure of the skull on his mind. That night they told me to call the family together because they didn't expect him to live until morning or any later than morning at the most.

It amazes me now when I think about it; at the time, I was just as calm and collected. I didn't feel any fear at all. I didn't feel any fear that he was going to be dead by morning. The doctor told me to get the family together. We gathered into a little room in the hospital where the nurses were at the desk. I remember saying to the doctor, "Do you think I ought to get a will? We have 01:29:00never done this yet." He said, "Yes, by all means." I remember the nurses saying to each other, "Oh, she is a hard cookie, isn't she?" As the doctor and I walked down the hall, I said to the doctor, "What did they expect me to do? What is the matter with me? Is something wrong with me?" He said, "Heavens no, lady. Most of [the women who] we tell their husband won't live until morning start screaming and crying. We have to give them shots and put them to bed." I said, "I haven't [the] time. I haven't [the] time. I would like to cry, too, but I don't have time." He said, "Get a lawyer up here and get your will taken care of." I remember as we went [doing] this, all he could do was practically mark an 'X' on it because he couldn't see the paper or anything. His eyes were all black. But 01:30:00we did have witnesses and mailed all of it in.

When his folks came, his two brothers, [inaudible] and his father [Joseph Irvin Callahan] came over; they went right up and administered to him. His father bent over to administer to him and how he shook. He was getting so old. I thought about all the children he had raised and how many hours he had spent by their bedside in sickness. The thought came to my mind that there is the old patriarch.

We went back to the waiting room and waited. The doctor told us when he would be there to see "Jess." He came in and said, "I don't understand it. He had seven 01:31:00reasons to be dead and here he is alive." He took me aside and said, "It looks as though he is going to live, but he is paralyzed on his left side. He will probably be confined to a wheelchair the rest of his life. But don't tell him. He is the independent type. If he finds out that he is going to have to be dependent upon somebody else, he is liable to throw himself out the window and kill himself." This kind of frightened me, but still, at the same time, I thought: he doesn't know about the Priesthood. He doesn't know that we realize what it would be to take our own life.

He started fighting to overcome being paralyzed. In so doing, his mind snapped. 01:32:00They had to put him in a mental ward. One night, just before this happened, I had put the children all to bed and fell off into a deep sleep. All of a sudden I woke up screaming and running through the house. Right in the middle of the house I stopped and I thought: my word, what has happened to you? Are you cracking up? All of a sudden it came into my mind right away that there was something wrong with "Jess" and [I had to] get to the telephone right away. I telephoned and told the nurse, "Check my husband and see if he is alright." [She said], "I was just in there." I said, "Please check him again." "Oh lady," she said, "we have other things to do than just check and recheck." I said, "Please, I beg you, please check on him again." She hung up and I didn't know whether she checked on him, but she told me the next day it was sure a good thing I called her because he had tried to throw himself down the stairway. He was so 01:33:00completely out of his mind that he didn't even know what he was doing. So then they put him in a mental ward where everything around him would be safe so that he couldn't hurt himself in any way.

The next day as I came in, the doctor rushed up to me to try to explain to me what had happened. I don't know what expression I had on my face, but he just stepped back from me like he was frightened of me and let me go right on in and see what was going on. I could see right away what had happened, that his mind just might be like a broken record that couldn't go on from where it was. He had the idea in his mind that he was going to go down to the devil. By the 01:34:00expression of his eyes you would think that the devil did have possession of him because he didn't look like himself at all. [There was] a darkness in his eyes and a wild look.

Every time I would go to see him he would tell me the same thing. I would try to talk to him about other things, get him interested in other things and he just wouldn't listen to it. Finally, the head doctor at the clinic called me and said, "We are going to have to do something different with your husband. He is not responding to treatment the way he is. We are going to have to give him shock treatments. I don't know whether you know what this is or not." I said, "No, I don't." He said it was the type of [treatment] that either would kill him or cure him. I thought: oh my goodness, to take that responsibility of deciding 01:35:00whether he should live or die. That was almost too much for me. His folks came in my mind right away. Would they hold this against me if I made the wrong decision? I went home and prayed about it. He said I could have until morning to decide. I called him the next day and I told him that I felt like that "Jess" wouldn't want to go on like he was, that he would rather be dead than carry on like he was, so [to] go ahead and give him the treatments. I told him, too, that I felt like that I could probably find a way to go on with him like the way he was, but I didn't feel like he would want to.

They gave him the shock treatments. Treatments concerning the mind were something I had never been in contact with before and it was really a 01:36:00frightening experience for me. The first time I took him out on what they called home therapy to a [small] park that was close by and walked with the children. He just gazed into space like he wasn't aware of anything that was [going on] around him. He told me afterwards that he doesn't remember ever having gone there at all.

They gave him ten shock treatments and then they sent him home. They said they couldn't do anything more with him at the hospital, that he would have to go home for home therapy. They told me something when they sent him home that really frightened me. They said, "You have to watch him at all times. Never let him out of your sight because he can either get well or he can kill the whole 01:37:00family in his sleep and we don't know what it is going to be." I remember [that] one of the converts to the church, one of the people that we had helped come into the church, [had] called me and asked me how he was. I told her what they had told me and told her how frightened I was. She said, "Ruth, how can you feel this way when you know you have the Priesthood in the church to help us?" I thought: a convert to the church had more faith than I did. I surely must be able to find some more faith than I had at the time.

We went on with [the routine] at home. Finally, I found out I was going to have to have work to try to keep things going because we didn't have any money coming from the industrial insurance. One night I woke up with this dark feeling like 01:38:00he wasn't there. I rushed into the other room and I couldn't find him. I rushed through the house. All of a sudden I thought of the baby and I dashed in there and he was gone. I was just scared to death of what had happened. I finally found him way back in the corner of the kitchen sitting there feeding the baby his bottle in a crying way. I said to him, "What in the world are you crying about?" He said, "Look at this tiny helpless baby, mama. How can I help him? He is so dependent upon us. How can I help him the way I am?" I said, "We are going to have to find a way." A thought came to my mind right away: [this] is a clue [of] how I am going to help him. [When] he came home he would just sit and stare 01:39:00[thinking]: I can't earn anything for the family anymore and I am not any good to anybody else. I might as well just sit here and die. That is the way he looked. I thought right away when I saw that he felt the need of this baby that I should turn the care of the baby over to him so it would help to pull him out of himself and give to the baby [Gary Cooper Callahan].

[END OF TAPE TWO -- SIDE ONE]

RC:-- any [thing] that I [could] teach my husband [so] that he [could] do 01:42:00something. There is some work that he can do. I took the baby and him down with me to work. At first, I put him and the baby in one of the rooms and went ahead and did the work. One day, I accidentally put him in one of the dirty rooms that had not [been] cleaned up. What do you know? I heard sweep, sweep from the room down there. I thought: what in the world is going on? I dashed down the hall to see and he was cleaning up the room. He said, "I can't stand it in this dirty room." He always loved to have clean things around him. It was just so obnoxious to him that he got up, cleaned up the room and sat down with the baby again. 01:43:00That was all the further he was going to go. I thought: oh goodie! At last he has done something. I think now that I can get him to do something else.

The next day I said to him, ""Jess," it is [very] embarrassing for me to clean up the men's restroom because some are coming and going all the time. Sometimes they walk in when I am there and it embarrasses them, too." In the building there were two wards meeting in there, all of our baptisms were done there and there were a lot of converts coming into the church all the time. We had all of our weddings and dinners there at the church so there were people coming and going all the time. He could see I had a problem alright. So he said he could clean up that room.

One room led to another and he [progressed] to where he was helping me just wonderfully. Later on, I thought I could turn the job over to him. I said, "It 01:44:00is getting too much for me to take care of the children for school, keeping their clothes clean and their food, keeping the house clean and taking care of the church, too. [Inaudible] "Yes, I think I can do it now." So he [started] taking care of [the church] in a manly sort of way, but he didn't know how to do the fine cleanup work that needed to be done. The bishop asked me if I would feel too bad if he let us go because he needed someone [who] could do this finer cleaning. I told him no, that we had our finances straightened out by then and felt like it would be best if we did [leave] because it was beginning to show on my health, too, all the heavy work that I had to do.

I could see too that he still needed something to help him to have a purpose in life. I suddenly remembered how much we loved going to the temple and how happy he seemed to be when he was there. I thought if there was just a place where we could [live so] that he could work in the temple. Another thing was someplace 01:45:00where the climate was better because after he had this head injury it seemed like the continual rain, the low pressure you have in connection with the rain, would cause him to have such terrific headaches and [be] so despondent. I thought: if I [could be] someplace where there was more sunshine, he would feel better. If he had something he could do every day that it would be better for him, too.

I went down to St. George with a [United States] Air Force couple. I rode with them to Salt Lake City [Salt Lake County, Utah] and then took a bus from there to St. George. [I] investigated and found out that [this move] would be the 01:46:00right thing to do. I went back home and put the place up for sale. Within a very short time, a couple came and wanted to get in it within two days because he was going overseas and wanted to [have] his family in a place. We had eighteen years' accumulation of [possessions] to gather up in two days and [put] on a truck. We gave things away and we threw things away. [Laughter] We walked away and left many, many things. The house that I thought I was going to be able to rent down here didn't come up for rent, so I was caught between my home and being down here. I called home to dad. He was staying in [a] big ranch house by now. Mother had passed on a few years prior to that. I [thought] that would be a place for us to live until I could get down here.

I remember all of our friends gathering around saying, "Why are you leaving us? 01:47:00We love you so. Haven't we been right to you?" I told them it was something I had to do. They said, "Why are you going to Oregon?" I said, "I am going home to bury dad." I hadn't even thought of it before that. It just came out just like that -- I am going home to bury dad. I [went] home and at the end of two [months] this is what happened. He did die. Dad said to me after he had had the first stroke, "Honey, I am so glad you are here. If I had been here all alone I don't think I could have stood it." As [we] talked to him, we realized he was scared to die. He was terrified at the thought of dying. Then "Jess" talked to him and told him about how he had come near to death so many times and how he 01:48:00had actually prayed to die at times. Dad thought: if he can face it this [well], why, I can, too.

"Jess" had been quite weak from the move, traveling and the pressure of making the change. He [was] where he couldn't even keep anything on his stomach. He was just dehydrating practically. Dad [was] so worried about him that he forgot about himself. Sometimes I kind of wondered if he didn't try to negotiate with the Lord to let him go instead of "Jess." I remember the day he died I went down to the hospital. It was along [about] evening, about six o'clock. I said to him, 01:49:00"Dad, what have you been doing today?" He looked peaceful and calm. He said, "I have been sitting out with the senior citizens watching the cows grazing and talking with the [fellows]." I said, "Should you have been out there? Shouldn't you have been in bed in this condition?" He said, "I was happy out there so they let me stay." I thought: maybe it is a good thing. He is happy. That is the main thing. Then he kind of drowsed off like he was sleepy. I said, "Dad, maybe I better go and let you sleep and come back later." He called me by the name of Sadie. I said, "No, dad, it isn't Sadie. It is Ruth." He said, "It doesn't matter, honey, you are a good girl too." He hugged me up to him. I could tell that he was [very] tired. He seemed like just tired out. I said, "I will see you 01:50:00again tomorrow, daddy, goodnight," and left. I hadn't been gone only a little while and he died. He was tired.

FH:Who was Sadie?

RC:Sadie was the [sister] I told you about [who] was the second mother in the family, the girl that had taken care of mother and dad when the rest of us were 01:51:00gone away from home and couldn't do anything to take care of them. She was the one who had seen them through their illnesses. In fact, she had a nervous breakdown after mother died because she had worked so hard to try to take care of her. I loved her so much and [she] suffered so much.

I went to work in the Mutual in the town and also as a den mother. I started the Cub Scouts [Boy Scouts of America] in that part of the country. They hadn't had Cub Scouts before. I had two [young] boys who were Cub Scout [age] -- one [who] was already in and one coming up. I felt like it was a good program [and] I should start [it] there. I helped them get this started and had a wonderful den chief, a boy [who] was a star [Boy] Scout by this time and did a lot to help me. I worked with the secretary in the Mutual, the [position] I had had in Tacoma 01:52:00prior to coming to Oregon. I kind of renewed friendships with the old people I had known there when I was a child. One of the boys I remember worked in the [United States] Post Office by that time. [He was] one of the boys I had gone to Mutual with when I was in my teens.

We finally came down to St. George again. My husband, by this time, was feeling better. I talked him into going to see [St. George] to be sure that he would like it too. So we came down and looked at it. We [bought] this place that we are living [in] now [in St. George]. We went back up to Oregon. There was a blizzard up there. Compared to what it was here, it was nice just like it is today, a beautiful day. We went up there and here it was a blizzard.

We settled things up there and helped my sister [Sadie] get the place painted and cleaned up. [There was] an accumulation of many, many years that dad had 01:53:00[been] there at the ranch when he couldn't get out and do anything [for] himself. His leg had [been] amputated and [he] was confined to a wheelchair. My husband and I hauled off truckload after truckload of [items], cleaned and painted so she could get a good buy on it. When it was spring, the children were out of school, [and] we [moved] down here to our new home. The children have been very happy here.

FH:How long have you [lived] here?

RC:[We have been here] four years. The first year we were here, the bishop sent me off to the Indian Branch to work in the Relief Society out there. I worked out there for two years. Then they needed someone in town to help with the Cub Scouts again. He called me to be a den mother [for the] Cub Scouts. Before that, 01:54:00they had wanted me to be in the Primary organization, but I didn't feel like I could take two [positions] at the time and still keep my husband going [with] all the other things I needed to do. They put him to work right quickly in the [St. George] Temple baptizing the people and he would do endowment work too. I discovered they didn't have enough people to do baptisms. So I started going and did 120 [names] on Wednesday each week. I would do a couple of endowments, too. This has been some of the happiest times in my life.

FH:Are you making a living here for your family?

RC:We have industrial insurance coming to us from [the] policy that my husband was carrying. Since the time of his accident, Social Security made a new ruling that anybody [who] was totally disabled would qualify for Social Security [earlier] than waiting until age sixty-five. So we have this, too, which was plenty for us. When we were living in Tacoma, there were so many things we could do there to help ourselves, [but] here we haven't been able to do this. All the things that we had planned to do didn't work out. We didn't get enough water to [grow] vegetables and fruit that we thought we might need here. A pack of dogs killed the animals that we tried to graze. My husband and I talked about this 01:56:00and wondered why when we were trying to do so many things that were right and why it seemed like everything turned out wrong. [Laughter] He said, "Don't you know that is the way we are tried?" It made me think about the story of Job, the many trials he had.

FH:You don't have quite as many [trials] as he had.

RC:No, definitely not. I thought about how he proved himself out and how in the 01:57:00story it makes me think about the devil and Heavenly Father playing chess with his life. One would say if he is put in this circumstance I bet he won't stand up to it. The Lord said, "Yes he will." "Well, let's see." So I thought [that] this is our life, maybe this is kind of the way we are tried. Now they have called me to go to the temple and do sealings on the computer names. They have me lined up to do 150 every Wednesday. I hope that nothing happens or I will miss out on that.

FH:What have you learned from [your] life experiences?

RC:I recall what father said when I asked him the same question. He said, from the physical standpoint, that he had learned that no matter how old you are, you were always tempted. He felt like when you [were] older and wiser, you [were] past the point of temptation. But he said this wasn't the case. As you [grew] older, your body [became] weaker and you were more prone to give in to temptations. Then he said, too, I have learned that Jesus is the Christ and He actually lives. This is what I have learned, too.

FH:Would you like to counsel your family and your descendants and bear your testimony?

RC:I might say that I feel like the things I have learned through life have helped to strengthen my testimony and make me realize the importance of serving the Lord and keeping the commandments. He has said, "try me and I will prove the things that I told you are so." This is what I have done. I have tried and proven all the principles of the gospel. One of the things we had to learn first in our married life was the necessity of paying tithing. I remember when my husband was close to dying [with] the first operation, I sat there and went back over my life and thought: now what are we doing wrong? There is something wrong. The first thing that came into my mind, you are not paying your tithing. You are 02:00:00only haphazardly doing this and this isn't right. So I made a covenant with the Lord then that I would pay my tithing if He would spare my husband's life and help us to go on and learn the things that we should learn in life. This is one thing I have always prayed that we would accomplish the things we had been sent here in life to learn and do the job we were sent here to do.

I can't think of anything I should say that would not be preaching and still would be something that the children would always remember. One thing I think I should say, though, that I have learned from life is that our fears keep us from doing a lot of things that we should do and keep us from direct communication

with our Heavenly Father. If we could learn how to throw these fears off, our potential would be greater than we realize. If we could just turn ourselves over to Heavenly Father and let Him direct our lives, He would do this for us.

[END OF TAPE TWO -- SIDE TWO]