UTAH VALLEY UNIVERSITY Utah Valley University Library George Sutherland Archives & Special Collections Oral History Program
Utah Women’s Walk Oral Histories Directed by Michele Welch
Interview with Julia Caswell by Diane Perkins November 10, 2014
Utah Women’s Walk
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee: Julia Caswell
Interviewer: Diane Perkins
Place of Interview: George Sutherland Archives, UVU, Orem, Utah
Date of Interview: 10 November 2014
Recordist: Michele Welch
Recording Equipment: Zoom Recorder H4n
Panasonic HD Video Camera AG-HM C709
Transcribed by: Brenna Wilson
Audio Transcription Edit: Chanelle Lynch
Reference: JC = Julia Caswell (Interviewee) DP = Diane Perkins (Interviewer) MW = Michele Welch (Director, Utah Women’s Walk)
Brief Description of Contents:
Julia Caswell recalls her early childhood years growing up in communist Bulgaria. She mentions moving with her family to Algeria and then escaping to France to find the freedom her family so desperately wanted. She discusses coming to Brigham Young University; meeting her husband, Tom Caswell; graduating from BYU; and then moving all the around the world as a Foreign Service Officer’s wife. She recalls the day, working for Voice of America that she announced to the world that Bulgaria was a free country. She talks about leaving the Foreign Service and coming to teach missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Julia also speaks of how much she enjoys teaching at Brigham Young University and Utah Valley University. She mentions that was a recipient of the Freedom Festival’s Freedom Award and sharing that award with Alan Osmond and Malcolm Forbes, Jr. She discusses her work with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ translation team. Lastly, she shares her hopes and dreams for the future.
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as uh and false starts and starts and stops in conversations are not included in this transcript. Changes by interviewee are incorporated in text. All additions to transcript are noted with brackets. Clarifications and additional information are footnoted.
Audio Transcription [01:52] Beginning of interview
DP: My name is Diane Perkins. This is Monday, November 10, 2014, and I am at the Utah Valley University George Sutherland Archives in Orem, Utah, interviewing Julia Caracop Caswell for the purposes of the Utah Women’s Walk. Today we are going to be talking about Julia’s life and her contributions to life in the state of Utah.
Julia, what are your earliest memories? Tell me about your family, early education, and community.
JC: I was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and I remember playing with other children [on] our block; we played princesses and queens and kings. However, since that was against the law, we would hide and play. Those are my earliest memories; maybe I was four or five. Started school when I was six, just like here, went to kindergarten. I remember that the elementary school was right across [from] our apartment house and my mom was waving goodbye as I crossed the street to go to school. We were packed in a two-bedroom apartment: my dad, my mom, my brother, younger brother, then me, myself, my grandparents, my aunt and uncle. We were on top of each other.
DP: Okay, well, was there anyone that had a particular influence on you?
JC: Well, I would say my mom; she was a perfectionist. She worked, and my grandparents took care of me and my brother. And my mom was the lady who organized the extracurricular activities at my elementary school. She always chose me to play the music; I played the accordion. And she taught dance and she taught recitals—reciting poems—and while the others recited, I was the background music. I remember she put together different types of ballets, but she never chose me because I was so tall. I was either the moon or the weather or sometimes spring or winter—just interesting parts of the play because I didn’t fit in the dance uniforms or I didn’t—I was too tall to participate otherwise.
DP: Was there one particular childhood experience that had significance to your future life?
JC: I think maybe when I won a contest, a poetry contest in middle school. And I got an award. I remember that. It was very nice, and I was surprised, and it helped me realize that I had writing talent. And so I used it afterwards to find work or to do other things that I really liked.
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 2 DP: Well, I remember reading about a substitute teacher who impacted you greatly. By this time I understand that Communism had taken over Bulgaria and there was some limitations on the things that you could talk about or the things that you could say. Do you remember him?
JC: Yes, I was in first grade, and our regular teacher was sick. We had a substitute teacher, a young man just out of teaching school. And he brought different postcards, and on the postcards he had the statue of Lincoln from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. And because it was something that came from the United States of America, all of the children were very interested. And he told us about his wonderful trip, and as a souvenir, he brought these postcards. He passed the postcards to all. I took mine, and I smelled it, and I hugged it, and it was a symbol of freedom to me, which we didn’t have at that time in Bulgaria under Communism. The next day, the teacher didn’t come back. The principal of the school came and said, “I heard that you have all received each a postcard. Your teacher is now sick, and he would like to have his postcards back.” And all the others gave the postcards back, but I hid mine in the pillowcase, and I kept it there for a long period of time. Whenever I was sad, I would look at the Lincoln Memorial picture and say, “One day, I will visit you. One day, I’ll be there.” So it sustained me through the dark days of Communism.
DP: Do you remember a sense of fear or anxiety as a child growing up?
JC: Yes, we had to be very careful. I was taught at home that we should never repeat anything we speak of at home because it could be sensitive thoughts or stories, and they could make my grandparents or my parents go to prison. I was very quiet at school; I did not share anything of the conversations we had together in our home. I was especially careful not to repeat anything to my friends. I was not allowed to have any sleepovers because in case we open up our hearts to each other and say something that was not right—
DP: That’s hard.
JC: —that would incriminate my parents.
DP: Hard for a child, to have—
JC: Very hard.
DP: —to be all that boxed in and tight and careful.
JC: Yes.
DP: And that it would raise anxiety. In 1963, your father was given an opportunity to relocate to North Africa for a period of two years. Would you share with me how that came about and how he was chosen?
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 3
JC: Yes, I had just turned sixteen, and in April, after my birthday, I remember my dad bringing a beautiful globe that he had just bought from a bookstore. He put the globe on our little round table, and he called my brother Peter and said, “You and Peter get to find where the country of Algeria is situated on the globe.” And we both said, We know exactly where it is; it’s between Morocco on the left and Tunisia on the right, and it’s a large Arabic country. Just got its freedom from France. It used to be a colony of France, a French colony; we had studied about that at school. We found it on the globe, showed it to my dad, and he was very happy, and he said, “Now that you have found the place, I’d like to tell you what happened today. As I went to work,”—to the place where he worked, which was the research institute—Scientific Research Institute of Bulgaria. He worked there as a dental technician; he was the youngest of seven. The other six dental technicians were waiting for him out in front of the outside door.
At first he thought he was late, but the reason they were waiting was completely different. And they told him that all seven of them, as he had done also, had turned in an application to be chosen to work outside of Bulgaria as a dental technician in the country of Algeria. The country of Algeria needed new medical aid, medical assistants, nurses, doctors, dentists, dental technicians. And my dad turned in his application, as well as the other six of his colleagues. All seven were fighting each other for just one single space. And so they decided to make the decision in a more fair way, they called it. The oldest and the other five, other than my dad, decided to draw lots. So they took six, seven pieces of paper because there were seven of them. On six of them they wrote no; on one of them they wrote yes. They folded them; they put them in a hat. And they passed it around. And everybody drew, and my dad drew the yes. They said, Well you never draw once without drawing second and third time. Let’s just try for three times and see who gets to go. So they refolded the papers; they drew the second time. My dad drew the yes; the third time my dad drew the yes. And then there was dead silence when he drew the yes three times in a row. There was dead silence in the room, and the other people were unhappy, of course. At first they thought it was a fair way to decide who gets to go to Algeria, but now they all felt it was not such a good idea.
So the oldest man stood up and said, “There’s seven of us here. We have drawn three times. If this man is meant to go to Algeria, we’re not going to stop him. But he has to prove it to us, and he needs to draw four more times in a row in order to make it seven times out of seven. There’s seven of us here, seven pieces of paper, and we’re making it a rule that he has to draw seven times in a row.” And they threw away the first papers; they took seven other small pieces of paper, refolded everything. This time they put them in a box; they passed the box around, and my dad drew seven times in a row—four more times. They blindfolded him. They asked him to leave; they appointed someone else to draw in his stead. He still drew the yes. So in the end they all agreed, Somebody’s helping this man; we’d better not stand in his way. He got to leave the first of May, and then a month
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 4 later, the first of June, my mom, my brother, and I followed and joined my dad in Algeria.
DP: That’s amazing. Now, I was wondering, setting the scene, is the reason that they needed the technical personnel in Algeria that the people that had those occupations all went back to France after the revolution?
JC: Correct.
DP: Oh, okay.
JC: That was one of the reasons. The second one, of course, was that the Algerian people, the professional people, either left for France or were killed in the civil war which happened just a couple of years before we arrived.
DP: Well, Algeria sounds like it would have been a beautiful country and a lot of people wanted to go there. Do you remember about first arriving and what really impressed you about that land that was different from your homeland?
JC: Yes. Um, a lot of sunshine. Reminded me of San Diego. Very, very white streets, almost bleached by the sun—beautiful, white sand beaches and a lot of fruits and vegetables. I had not seen a banana in Bulgaria; I didn’t know what a tangerine was or a pineapple. For the first time in my life, I stood in awe in front of these piles of fruits and vegetables. And one of the man, one of the local vendors looked at me and said, “What you looking at girl?” and I said, “You have so much. You have so many fruits and vegetables. Have you ever thought of sending them to other countries?” And he couldn’t understand that I came from a country where we were allowed only one orange per person for New Year’s.
[17:11]
DP: Well, one of the things that I’ve noticed about your story, Julia, is that you have a facility for language. So were you having this conversation a little later on after arriving in Algeria, or had you had opportunities to learn different languages in Bulgaria?
JC: In Bulgaria, when I went to kindergarten, we studied—it was required for us to study two languages simultaneously, one was Russian and one was Bulgarian. And then, as I got older, seven and later eight, I started at the Alliance Française, which is an extra-curriculum course in French my parents paid for. And so I studied French from the time I was eight until I was sixteen—so for eight years at the Alliance Française. And I was taught by native speakers, French native speakers. And we studied culture, the language. It was very well done, and it was organized thanks to a grant from France to Bulgarian students. Then when I was thirteen, I competed in a contest to be selected as a small number of middle school children to go to an English-speaking high school. And, at that point, I was
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 5 chosen. There were two different contests. There was a written one where you had to write Shakespearean sonnet in Bulgarian, and then translated what you have written in a language that you already knew, so I did it in French. That was the written [test]. And then there was an essay in a different language, which was in Russian. And then you had to have a psychological testing to see whether you would be good enough, whether you had the gift of languages, and whether you would not crack under the pressure because we needed to memorize Shakespearean plays and poetry, and it was hard, and you needed to concentrate, so they were testing the different abilities to absorb a new language.
DP: And your brother, was he taking those same classes and able to follow you at those schools, or—
JC: No.
DP: That sounds extraordinary. So by 1965, you’re now seventeen, and all good things must come to an end, and your father’s two-year assignment is now up.
JC: Yes.
DP: Now, did you feel freer? Were you able to talk more with friends? Or were you still very, very, careful in [Algeria regarding] your innermost feelings?
JC: No, we had a family council, and my dad and my mom said that we’re free to express our feelings. And I had a lot of friends, and the friends were always gathering in our apartment because it was very large with a huge living room and a wraparound balcony on the fourth floor; we could see the entire Mediterranean. (laughs) It was beautiful.
DP: And your family had chosen not to live among other expats from Bulgaria?
JC: We were required to at first. You were required to live together with the Bulgarians for three months. And there was a clinic called Clinique Carnot, and we lived in Clinique Carnot in just two bedrooms, and we all shared the same bathroom with all the other Bulgarians, and then it was a transition. Then we had to find our own place, which we did.
DP: Awesome. Well, when it’s time to go back, you are not enthused about returning to Bulgaria.
JC: Not at all.
DP: And your father was equally anxious not to have to go back to Bulgaria. So if you could please share with us the circumstances surrounding the acquisition of exit visas that permitted your family to go to France?
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 6 JC: Okay. The Bulgarian authorities, more precisely the Bulgarian Embassy in Algiers, Algeria, knew that they were going to lose a certain number of Bulgarians, and they were prepared to do their best to prevent that loss. And so they established three different steps to leave Algeria. The first step was that every Bulgarian citizen or the head of the family of Bulgarian citizens, had to go to the Bulgarian Embassy to receive “To Whom It May Concern,” which was a permission to leave Algeria by the Bulgarian Embassy. With that permission, you needed to go to the Algerian authorities, which was the Algerian prefecture, and they were going to stamp your individual passports with an exit visa, and then with that exit visa and the “To Whom It May Concern,” those two documents were presented to any consulate, whether it was the French consulate or the British consulate, or any other foreign country you wanted to visit. So we decided it would be nice to visit France because we learned—we went to a French school in Algeria, and so my dad jumped on the train. We were living in the city of Oran, O-r-a-n, and my dad needed to go to Algiers to the Bulgarian Embassy. So he jumped on the train, went to Algiers, and requested a “To Whom It May Concern.” And they just laughed in his face. They said, Well, we can actually only give you one, for you, but your family will have to go back to Bulgaria. And so my dad came. He was all discouraged and my mom said, “Go back, just get that document.”
And so when he went back a second time, the Bulgarian Embassy said, Yes, we will give you the document, but only if you pay for three seats on the Bulgarian plane. So my dad paid for me, my brother, and my mom to go back, and then they gave him the “To Whom It May Concern.” He came home, and my mom was very disappointed. She had hoped that they would at least let her go with her husband. And they talked all night, and they didn’t know what to do; they didn’t want to go back to Bulgaria. So I listened to their talk, and I said, “Could I see this document?” So they showed me just the simple sheet of paper, and it was a Xeroxed sheet of paper that you had to fill in the information: your name, your address. And it said, “To Whom It May Concern: This gives permission to Mr. Kiril Petrov Kiriakov living at—” and it gave the address where we were living, so that he can get an exit visa from the Algerian prefecture. And because the sheet of paper was intended for several people to be listed, there was space. So I said to my parents, “I can forge and put et sa famille,” which means “and his family.” So Kiril Petrov Kiriakov living at such and such address and his family. And my parents said, Can you really do that? And I said, “Yeah they taught us at school.” (laughs) The ink was purple, so we went and bought different types of inks—we mixed the inks, and got the same shade.
So then the next day, the four of us went to the Algerian prefecture. So how would you translate prefecture? Like the Algerian city hall?
DP: I think so.
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 7 JC: City hall. Yeah. The woman who took our passports and the “To Whom It May Concern” paper said, “Now that’s odd that the Bulgarians would put only his name and then put ‘and his family.’ They usually list all the people whose passports we’re supposed to stamp with exit visas.” When my mom heard that, she fainted in my dad’s arms. But right at the moment the lady was asking us this question, the phone rang and she didn’t want to answer the phone. Someone else ran in and said, “Give these people their visas. Stamp their passports and let’s get out of here.” And we couldn’t understand what was going on, and they were exchanging words in Arabic. And so she gave back the “To Whom It May Concern” to my dad, took all four of our passports, and one of our passports got stamped on the wrong page. And she quickly gave them to us and left and locked the door.
And then we found out that the president of Algeria, Ben Bella at the time, had been ousted and the president by the name of Boumédiène had replaced him.1 And people were shooting on the streets. People were fighting because the two factions of the government were fighting each other. And so from getting our passports stamped, we went to the French consulate. They didn’t even question anything. We hid the “To Whom It May Concern” just in case, and we got the exit visas. That same afternoon, we went and bought tickets on the ship, which was going to stop in Spain. So we got on the ship in Oran, left absolutely everything we owned including our dog Terry. We sewed some money inside our coats, and took some food and paid for two cabins, one cabin for my mom and me, and one cabin for my dad and my brother, and went to France.
DP: Well, it sounds like your life is going to take quite a change here because you were in crowded circumstances in Bulgaria. You were in much roomier circumstances in Algeria, and more food was available—
JC: Absolutely.
DP: —so you weren’t knowing hunger. But now as a refugee you’re going to be going to France, and I think that’s going to be a bit different. So could you tell us, please, what life was like once you arrived in France?
JC: Yes, we arrived in Marseille. We gathered our passports; we turned them in to the French—went to the French city hall, spoke with the mayor of Marseille, and told him we wanted to become political refugees. And he was very understanding and he said, “Keep your passports. We’ll give you a special card. But will you be staying in Marseille?” And we said, No we are going someplace else. And so we took the train, went to Paris, and then from Paris we went to Saint-Malo. And in Saint-Malo, we knew someone who allowed us to live free in her apartment. And
1. Ahmed Ben Bella was the first president of Algeria from 1963 to 1965. Houari Boumédiè ne usurped Ben Bella s and became Algeria’s second president serving from 1976 to 1978.
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 8 we stayed there for thirty days. My dad couldn’t find a job; we decided to go to the actual capital of the province of Brittany, Rennes. So we went to Rennes. And the French government helped us, gave us a free brand new apartment, and money for furniture we could buy and my—they found a job for my dad and a job for my mom.
DP: Now your parents, what were their language skills at the time?
JC: Well, unfortunately my dad doesn’t have—didn’t have good language skill, but my mom could speak quite well—had learned the language. But both my brother and I spoke good French.
[34:31]
DP: Well, what experiences in France helped prepare you for your life’s work? This— by now you’re a young adult—
JC: Yes.
DP: —are you falling in love or—
JC: Well, I—a year after we arrived in France, two Mormon missionaries came, knocked on our door, and we loved what we heard.2 We were converted to the LDS Church and became members, all four of us, and were very happy.3 And, as the end of the school year approached, one of the missionaries said, “Where will you be going to—what university will you be choosing?” And I said, “Well, my parents have been talking about going to Canada from here.” Because while we were in France, the Bulgarian Embassy in Paris found out where we were, and they knew that we had escaped. So we received three threatening letters where they said that they would actually kill my dad, and they would kidnap me and my brother to take us back to Bulgaria.
And I applied to two different universities: Brigham Young University and a university in Quebec in Montreal. And I said, “Okay, whoever offers me a scholarship first, that’s where I’m going.” And Brigham Young University offered me scholarship. It was not a full-ride scholarship; it was just for tuition, but it was good enough for me, so I came to BYU [Brigham Young University].
A mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a geographical area to which Latter -day Saint missionaries are assigned. Missionaries of The Church2. of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are volunteer representatives who engage in proselyting, Church service, and humanitarian aid.
3. The full and formal name of the LDS Church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints.
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 9 DP: All by yourself?
JC: All by myself.
DP: And how was that different—
JC: Well, the reason I came by myself, with ten dollars in my pocket, is because my dad became very sick. And he had to be hospitalized, and he was in the hospital for six months. And my mom and my brother stayed behind to take care of him and only I could leave.
DP: Was there anyone that mentored you when you got to Utah, or were you just really a lone little girl in a big new city?
JC: Well, no, my mom wouldn’t have let me come by myself. I came with a returned sister missionary, and her name is Marion Ralph, and she was a sister missionary in my city. And I came with Sister Ralph; I traveled from Paris to New York; we stayed in the same hotel and then we went—the two of us went—to visit her brother in Columbus, Ohio. So that was the first city I went to, and I spent Christmas there. And then right before New Year’s, we flew from Columbus, Ohio, to Salt Lake. And then her parents came and picked us up at the airport, and I stayed at their place.
DP: And when you got to BYU, did you get an apartment or live in a dorm?
JC: Yes, I lived in the dorms, in Heritage Halls. I stayed in Whitney Hall for a semester, and then I found a very nice friend, Sue Bringhurst, who was from Pocatello, Idaho. And Sue and I became very good friends, and we shared an apartment later.
DP: And how was your money lasting, your ten dollars?
JC: Well, I—because I came on an immigrant visa, I was able to start working right away, so I was supporting myself.
DP: Because you had tuition for your—
JC: The tuition was paid.
DP: —paid for.
JC: Uh, yes.
DP: And you could work enough to pay for your rent?
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 10 JC: Yes, I worked and paid for my rent and for my food because while everybody else was buying their books either secondhand or from the BYU Bookstore, I checked them out of the library. And I didn’t pay a cent.
DP: And eventually you met your husband, Tom Caswell at BYU. Was that that first year or—
JC: So, I stayed two years at BYU, and I was in my last semester. I was graduating when I met my husband, my future husband, Tom. And I met him at a French party. We were both French majors; we actually both had double majors. Mine was French and Russian, and his was international relations and French. We were married the twenty-fifth of April that same year. It was quite a romance, and it still is.
DP: Oh, that’s wonderful. Now, were you getting married without your parents here or had things worked out that they would be able to come to America?
JC: It worked out that my brother came a year after I came, and then my parents followed exactly twenty-five days before our wedding. So they were able to be there.
DP: Awesome, I’m sure that was a wonderful treat. After you both graduated, Tom takes a job with the State Department, and his work takes you to several other countries. So what were the most effective strategies you had to learn to help you adapt, especially with a growing family?
JC: Well, the first thing I believe in is learn the language of the country. So our first assignment was Germany, Dusseldorf. And I proceeded to learn German [and] also make friends. Especially in our Church, we were in a German ward. We preferred being in a German ward. And we spoke German and sent—we sent our oldest to a German kindergarten.4 And so we involved ourselves in the culture, learned the language, and really enjoyed the local people.
DP: Well, once again, you’re not living with other people from your home country; you’re being able to experience the countries where you were living. Now, were your children able to learn those languages as well?
JC: Yes, they were. Of course, you know, being American, you want—you look for Americans. You want to have their relationship; you want to have their friendship. So we had that. We were doubly blessed.
DP: I was looking to see if I could remember—I got Dusseldorf, Germany; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Lisbon, Portugal; and Brussels—are those the only countries—
4. A ward is the basic ecclesiastical unit in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints.
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 11
JC: Okay, so—
DP: —or were there others I missed?
JC: —Dusseldorf, Lisbon—
DP: Which is Portuguese?
JC: —Lisbon, Portugal; Dusseldorf, Sao Paulo, the islands of the Azores, Ponta Delgata, Lisbon, Portugal; and Brussels, Belgium.
DP: That’s amazing.
JC: Beautiful assignments.
DP: I would think that you really had a wonderful opportunity. When did Tom finally get another posting in America, or were you coming back in between your foreign postings?
JC: We would usually come back on what we called home leave or vacation. And we had those five assignments one after the other, without an assignment in Washington, D.C. But after Brussels, Belgium, he decided to quit the Foreign Service and started working for the U.S. Mint in Washington. And then, after staying for four years in Washington D.C., the LDS Church missionary department called me to come and teach the Bulgarian missionaries who were getting ready to go to Bulgaria. And they needed a language teacher, and they wanted me to come by myself and just do it for a few months. But then as I was talking with the Missionary Training Center and the missionary department in Salt Lake, my husband Tom took the phone and said, “Well, if you’re going to take my wife, do you also want the six children?”5 (laughter) And so they were all—they didn’t know what to say and so he said, “Don’t worry, the whole family is going to move.” So my husband really gave up his wonderful career to come follow me. I’d been following him as he built up his career as a Foreign Service officer, now he followed me to Utah, and we came to Utah—
DP: Okay, so that’s your second—
JC: —so I could teach the missionaries.
5. The Missionary Training Center to which Julia refers is located in Provo, Utah. Generally all missionaries called from the United States or Canada spend a few weeks in the MTC to be trained as a missionary before they are sent to their respective geographical areas.
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 12 DP: Well that’s great. You were also a broadcaster in the Bulgarian service for Voice of America. What were the goals of that organization?
JC: Well, the Voice of America is part of U.S. Information Agency, and the Voice of America supplies true news to countries, at the time, behind the iron curtain. So we would get the news directly from the American news agency, and then we would translate the news. Then we would voice them so that the Bulgarian people would get the news the same time American people would get them.
DP: And so what was a typical day like for you?
JC: Very rushed. I would arrive at seven in the morning, we would be going to—we’d be looking at the news coming and getting them on tape, and then—well, on tape until 1985, in 1985, no—1987, 1987 we came back from Belgium, and we were in Washington, D.C. and this is when I started working for Voice of America. And we were the first agency to get computers. We got everything on our screen. So we were the first agency to have computers, and the first agency to have the software to do the translation in Bulgarian.
DP: What was your most memorable day there?
[49:33]
JC: Well, the most memorable day was November tenth. And so November tenth, the Berlin Wall fell. And the day after the Berlin Wall [fell], on the eleventh, which will be tomorrow, in 1989, we received word on our computers that the Bulgarian communist dictator, Todor Zhivkov, of thirty-five years, was put under house arrest and that the Bulgarian people were free. And they were—some people—but nobody had gotten the news. And the people at the Voice of America, all of my colleagues, were drinking Bulgarian plum brandy, and they were all really drunk. And they couldn’t go and tell the Bulgarian people what was happening, that the communist dictator had been put under house arrest, and the people were free, and a new dawn of freedom was coming. And so they—and usually this—for such hard piece of news, such wonderful piece of news, you need my husband’s voice.
He has a wonderful male voice, and there were a lot of other wonderful male voices, but they were all drunk, (laughter) and so they said, Well Julie will have to announce it. And so I stood in front of the mic and for the first time in many years—because I had been working on and off for the Voice of America from the time I was nineteen years old—my voice cracked, for the first time, because it was such an emotional, wonderful opportunity to announce such a great piece of news.
And then I want to tell you, in 1991 my dad was called to be the first mission president to open up the country of Bulgaria for the preaching of the gospel, and
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 13 LDS missionaries flocked in after he was set apart as a mission president.6 I went to—for the first time—back to Bulgaria. I went back at age forty-two, after I had left at age sixteen. And my dad wanted me to talk to university students’ groups, high school groups, and just tell them about my experience at the Voice of America. And I remember one student group at the University of Sofia—it was in a large auditorium, and I said, “Well, my name is such and such, and I have been away from Bulgaria for twenty-six years, and I am back, and I’ll tell you more about my life, and then I can open it for questions and I’ll answer.” And there was dead silence. Nobody said a word, and then the one small girl in the very back showed her hand and said, “You’re the one!” and everybody started clapping, “She’s the one,” and I couldn’t understand what they were talking about, but they had all been listening to the Voice of America when it happened.
DP: Well you mentioned, number one, that you were training missionaries—
JC: I was.
DP: —for the Bulgarian mission that had been a part of a different, I guess, group of states that were in one mission prior to that time, but now Bulgaria is going to be its own mission. Did you have very many missionaries in your class at the MTC?
JC: Well, I started with four, just four. They came on the thirteenth of February in 1991, and then the numbers slowly increased. We started getting sister missionaries, more elders.7 And it was a great experience. I taught at the missionary training center for ten years from February 13, 1991 to May 31, 2001.
DP: And how was it that your father was called to be the first mission president and what year—so your first missionaries are about 1990, and your dad arrives in—
JC: 1991.
DP: —1991.
JC: I started teaching the first missionaries on February 13, 1991, and my dad was called just a few days after I started teaching the first missionary district. He was called the twenty-eighth of February, the last day in February. So just a few days, well fifteen days after I started. And, well, it’s a funny story. My mom retired. She turned sixty-five on the twenty-second of March 1991. And she retired, and my parents decided to go on a mission. My dad had to retire before her because he
6. A mission president oversees and directs the missionaries within a particular mission.
7. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, female missionaries are addressed as sister and male missionaries are addressed as elder.
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 14 was older than her, and the two of them went to see their stake president; no, they went to see their bishop.8 And the bishop said, “Great, this is a great idea. Here are some papers to fill out.” And both of them said, No we don’t want to fill out any papers. If the Lord is going to call us, the Lord is going to call us without papers. And the mission—and he tried to talk them into doing that, but they were quite insistent. So he sent them to the stake president. They saw the stake president, and they told him the same thing. And the stake president picked up the phone and called the missionary department in Salt Lake, and told them that he has two crazy people from Bulgaria who want to go on a mission. And the other person in the missionary department didn’t answer, and he said, “Say again, they’re from Bulgaria? We’ve been looking for people from Bulgaria.” And he started shouting, being happy, and the stake president, who was a trial lawyer in Manassas, Virginia, said, “The world has gone mad today.”
But what had happened was, they were looking for a mission president who would be born and raised [in Bulgaria]. Because in order to open up the Bulgarian mission, you needed to have someone born and raised in Bulgaria to register the Church. So my dad’s mission—uh, stake president called at the right time, at the right place, and soon my mom and dad were set apart by Elder Oaks who said that my dad was taken out of Bulgaria just like Moses and then was returned to teach his people.9 And my dad’s patriarchal blessing says that, “The time will come when he will teach his people, his relatives, his compatriots, his friends, and he will be the one to open up the country of Bulgaria.”10 And it happened just like that.
DP: Were there any family members still living in Bulgaria that you hadn’t been able to visit in all of those years that you were essentially exiled from your home country that you were still living there?
JC: No.
DP: They had all died or moved?
8. A stake president is an ecclesiastical leader who presides over several Latter- day Saint wards (congregations). A bishop is the ecclesiastical leader of a Latter-day Saint congregation or ward.
9. Elder Dallin H. Oaks is a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. The Quorum of Twelve Apostles consists of twelve men who constitute the second-highest presiding quorum in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
10. Patriarchal blessings are individual blessings given to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 15 JC: They had either died, or they came to visit us here in the States, or they chose to come and live in the states after Bulgaria became a free country twenty-five years ago.
DP: Will you reflect on contributions that you have been able to make to the Utah community since you returned? For example, you helped set up the French department with Del Shumway here at UVU [Utah Valley University]. What were the circumstances surrounding that experience?
JC: As soon as we moved into this area, I contacted BYU and also UVU, and I wanted to be an instructor. And I really liked Del Shumway because he opened up to me and told me that I would do well to start French classes. I started with 101, then 102, and then started the Russian department.
DP: And were your children grown by this time?
JC: No, no, we came here in 1991. We came here with children ages five through nineteen. So we had one BYU freshman, and then I had children in high school, in middle school, and in elementary school, and kindergarten.
DP: The other event that I thought was very interesting is you were one of six Freedom Award winners honored during the July 1995 Freedom Festival, and you share that honor with Malcolm Forbes, Jr., Alan Osmond, Igor Tamaravich Gator, who is second only to Boris [Yelstin] as a Russian political figure.11
JC: Yes, it was Yelstin, I remember.
DP: What was that experience like for you? How did that evolve?
JC: It was a great experience because before that, I had received second place for my autobiography, and we were invited by Governor [Michael] Leavitt at the governor’s mansion. And I sat next to a Mr. Forbes, and he was a very interesting person to talk to, told me about his family, asked about my family. Very pleasant to be with, and then also, it was interesting to see Yelstin. He spoke from Russia on the huge screen in front of everybody, and it was special because we sat up in front on the stage and everybody spoke and right after me it was Mr. Yelstin, and right before me it was Mr. Forbes. And I was thinking—Tom was there; my
11. America’s Freedom Festival in Provo, Utah, is a celebration of freedom. The purpose of the festival is to engender patriotism through a variety of events spanning several weeks each summer in conjunction with Independence Day of the United States. Malcolm Stevenson "Steve" Forbes, Jr. is a publishing executive. He is the editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine. Alan Osmond was a member of the family musical group, The Osmonds. Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was a Russian politician and the first president of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 16 husband, Tom, was there—and he was very enthusiastically clapping when I spoke. (laughs) It was a special experience.
DP: It sounds like it was. And then Mr. Osmond, he was there as well because he had set up the whole Freedom Festival organization.
JC: Well, what I remember was he came and shook hands with everybody, and I felt honored to be shaking hands with the organizer. I remember that very well.
DP: That’s so wonderful. Well what do you think has been the most significant trial in your life?
JC: Well, my biggest trial was when my husband quit the Foreign Service. He knows that because I’m so well cut to be a Foreign Service wife. I was myself a Foreign Service officer before he became a Foreign Service officer. And I love going from country to country; I love studying different languages. And I love the fact that all of our children speak foreign languages, and they all love foreign foods, and they can—they feel at home in every country and with anyone. I love that. We’ve given them that particular education.
[01:06:24]
[01:07:52]
DP: Well you identified yourself as a Foreign Service wife and as an internationalist. How did you cope? Did you have to re-identify yourself in order to figure out who you were in the sense that there would be other things that would be identifying you from that day forward?
JC: It was hard when we first came to Utah. Utah was not as international as it is now, but I poured my heart to Del Shumway here at UVU, and his secretary was also my friend. And a lot of people at UVU were very international—very, very international. I would say even more international than BYU at the time, in 1991 when I started my career here at UVU.
DP: Well, I was wondering if you could share with us some of the opportunities that you’ve had since you’ve been here to share your language skills to serve others, either as a volunteer or as an employee? I think we’ve covered as an employee, but perhaps you’d like to talk about opportunities to share your language skills as a volunteer?
JC: Well, I am part of the Bulgarian team—Bulgarian translation team—for the LDS Church at conference.12 We do that as volunteers. Then I am—I teach
12. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gather semi- annually for what they term general conference. During the conference, Church leaders
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 17 Bulgarian—a Bulgarian literature class, nineteenth-century Bulgarian literature, at BYU. So when the Bulgarian ambassador came last year, Tom and I were there to welcome her. She also came five years ago; we were there to welcome her. And when I was here at UVU, we had French dignitaries come, and we had Russian dignitaries come, and even German. And so I feel that those two universities have given me an outpouring of support for my languages and for my language skills.
DP: You’ve always been a working woman it seems. There was not—
JC: I love working.
DP: —either at your husband’s side, working for the embassies. Do you have any advice for younger women that are trying to find that balance, raising families, finding themselves in their own talents individually as they’re searching to find that right balance between Church and community and paid labor?
JC: I would recommend just to have a very positive attitude, to be happy in what they are doing, and to find a way to excel in something to satisfy their own thirst for education. To always take a course, a class, read a book, never stop reading, and always be open to new ideas. I think that would rub off the children who will also be like the mother. Like learning a new language, learning math. Find something that you really think you’re not good at or that you really dislike, and make yourself like it, make yourself learn it, read about it, and then share it with your children, and be a good example to them, and things will work out. Don’t get discouraged; just be optimistic.
DP: I think that’s wonderful advice. Finally, is there anything that you would like recorded about your life that an area we haven’t covered today?
JC: I’ve taught 450 Bulgarian missionaries, and I’ve taught about fifty Russian missionaries. I’ve taught twelve Latvian missionaries; I’ve taught twenty-five French-speaking missionaries. I’ve also taught—I think twelve Portuguese- speaking missionaries, and many other languages at the MTC. When they couldn’t find someone who spoke the language, I would say, “Okay, just give me a manual and twenty-four hours. I will learn, and I will teach them.” And of course nowadays, you have the Internet; it’s even easier. So that’s what I wanted to say. I’m happy to have been part of this great missionary force, and to be part of Utah—to be called a Utahan. I’ve been here twenty-five years. It’s been the longest time my husband and I have been anywhere in the world. Because even— I left Bulgaria when I was sixteen, and then we were in different countries and different places and so— speak on various spiritual topics. CES in the abbreviation for the Church Educational System . The Church Educational System of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter - day Saints provides religious and secular education for Latter-day Saints and non-Latter-day Saints.
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 18
DP: And this is your favorite now?
JC: Yeah. It’s been a wonderful life—
DP: Well, thank you, Julia.
JC: —really wonderful.
DP: We’ve really appreciated your taking your time to come—
JC: Well, thank you for that opportunity.
MW: Just because I haven’t been here, and I know you’ve answered these things, but let me ask you just a couple things I always like to ask at the end. Where do you see yourself in ten years from now? Doing what? What would you like to accomplish in the future? Did you ask her that already?
DP: I didn’t.
MW: Oh, okay.
JC: I see myself—I’ve been thinking about it—making a couple of proposals to either UVU or BYU and teaching Balkan history because nobody is teaching it. I’m very interested in it, and my husband is interested in it, and cover maybe first, second World War[s], cover Balkan history and how the wars have influenced the people and the regions.
MW: That’s great.
JC: I have a lot of different ideas. And maybe go on a mission. I’d like to go on a mission to Brazil or Portugal, (laughs) because both my husband and I left our hearts in Brazil and Portugal. Of course, he hasn’t visited Bulgaria yet, so I don’t know.
DP: Oh—
JC: He has never—
DP: —he didn’t get to make that trip with you when you went to visit your folks?
JC: No. No, he had to stay with the other six kids, (laughter) the six kids at home.
MW: Did you tell us about your children, about what they’re doing, and your family?
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 19 JC: Okay, we have six: girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, boy. We’ve patented how to get that particular number and choice. Our oldest, Danielle, graduated in political science, and international relations, and ballroom dance from BYU. And she is married to an engineer, and they have three children, and they live in South Jordan. And her husband teaches there—teaches in a middle school as a math teacher. Number two, Tom Caswell, just like his dad, has a—I don’t know what kind, a doctorate degree in education. And he used to work for Western Governors University as the curriculum director. He is now a director in an educational software company. He graduated in instructional technology and believes in educating the world. And number three, Michelle, works for BYU at the life science building, graduated in English. She’s a writer and an opera singer—has two children. She and her husband and their two children live in Provo. Number four, Bobby, graduated from Utah Valley with a scholarship and a high GPA in business, and got a fellowship to go to Purdue from here, and received his MBA from Purdue. And he is now working for the SAP German company. And he’s married to a Bulgarian wife. And number five is a litigation lawyer in Hawaii, graduated from Baylor University Texas. And number six, Chris, went to UVU, and he’s married to a Swedish wife, and lives in Stockholm, Sweden. They have a one-year-old little girl. And he called us right when we were waiting up in front [of] this building, and we said, Chris we’re right in front of the UVU library. And he said, “Oh you will make me cry; I see myself parking there and studying there. Is it next to the liberal arts building?” And we said, Yes and we’re parked right there. And it brought beautiful memories to him.
MW: So that means six grandchildren? Did I count right?
JC: Nine, nine.
MW: Nine grandchildren.
JC: Number one has three, number two has three, number three has two, and the youngest, number six, has one.
MW: Do you enjoy being a grandmother?
JC: Oh yes. I love it, I love it.
MW: What traditions do your family do together as a family to build unity or— especially when you’re so far apart, how do you do that?
[01:20:58]
JC: We haven’t been so far apart for very long. And we have special traditions. For Christmas, we make a round bread, and we put a shiny twenty-five cent piece in it, and we break the bread and give pieces to all these people who are there around the table for Christmas, and whoever gets the shiny twenty-five piece, he is the
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 20 one who will give the good luck to the family; that’s a Bulgarian tradition. And we have family reunions, and we exchange pictures, and we fix Bulgarian dishes, and just love being together. We have very, very good children, and they love their dad, they love me, and they—we’ve had a happy life.
MW: That’s wonderful. You mentioned reading. What are your favorite books, or are you reading one currently that you enjoy? Is there a particular author or genre that is your passion?
JC: My number one book—I don’t know how many times I’ve read it, and I’ve translated it in different languages, is the Book of Mormon.13 And I also—I love poetry. And I love—I love reading. Tom has a younger brother who is a poet, and he sends us his poetry. We have his book. I also—I learned the English language by reading Shakespeare. I really love his works, and Tom and I go to the Shakespearean Festival in—
MW: Cedar City.
JC: —Cedar City. So those are my favorite books.
MW: Do you have a certain poem that you love more than another? I won’t ask you to cite it from memory, but maybe Diane could do that later, and we can get it recorded. Do you have a certain poem that speaks to you?
JC: Well, it’s French. (laughs)
MW: We’d love to hear it. Do you know it by heart, by chance?
JC: I know a small part, and my husband knows it too. (recites poem in French) And it has to do with a man who compares his love to a rose and says, “Let’s go together and check if the rose is still beautiful like you are, or whether the rose has lost its beauty and its youth.” And then he says he’s sorry, but that would happen to her, too, so let’s have fun and let’s enjoy life. (laughter)
MW: Did Diane ask you a favorite motto or mantra or—
DP: I didn’t.
MW: —words of wisdom that you have lived your life by? We ask that to every Utah Women’s Walk nominee. We ask, Is there a special mantra, or motto, or words of wisdom—anything—maxim, anything you have—that’s guided your life? Even— it could be a scripture, if the Book of Mormon is your favorite.
13. The Book of Mormon is part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint’s scriptural canon.
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 21 JC: It’s something that kept me—that helped me through Communism, and something that’s still helping me. It’s my favorite poem, which says, “Good better best, let us never rest, till our good is better, and our better best.”
MW: That’s wonderful. Where did that come from? (laughter) I’ve heard it too. That’s great.
JC: I know it from my English high school from Bulgaria, and I—my children love it, and my husband likes it, too. And it’s sort of what helps me—
MW: Good, good.
JC: —do my best.
MW: Well, I wish I had been here, but I’ll listen to every word that you speak. Do you have any spare time? You sound like you’re so busy and your life is full, but when you do have spare time what do you do for relaxation or for fulfillment besides reading? Is there any other hobbies or things you enjoy to do?
JC: We have a lot of things that my husband and I do together. We walk, and we exercise, we talk, we watch old movies with Fred Astaire and Lauren Bacall and a lot of the old black and white movies. We also like to taste French food and Portuguese, Brazilian because it takes us back. It reminds us of wonderful people, wonderful times we’ve had in the different countries. We like to travel, and we love to read, also, and I like to write. And I also am attached to the Internet. (laughs) I like to find—do a lot of research. I like to find things and work on my curriculum for the classes I teach.
MW: How do you like teaching? Do you enjoy interacting with the students?
JC: Very much, I think I’m a teacher at heart before anything else. I love teaching, and I love especially presentations by my students. They—I give them different titles of books or Bulgarian historic events. And they choose, and then they show me proof that they’ve done the research on the Internet, or books they have read, or different libraries they have been to, and then they make a multimedia presentation. And I like that because I like to learn from their presentation. I always tell them, “Do it such a way that even the teacher learns,” and so I enjoy that.
MW: Has there been one particular experience or student that you recall feeling very fulfilled in that you know you made a difference in their life?
JC: Yes, I had a Fulbright scholar, and he was exceptional.
[01:28:25]
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 22 [01:30:12]
MW: That’s great. How many of your students have received Fulbright scholarships?
JC: Seven.
MW: And you’ve been instrumental in helping them receive that?
JC: Yes.
MW: Tell us about that.
JC: I would speak with each individual student about what they want to achieve in life, educationally. And they would tell me, Well, right now, I would love to receive the Fulbright fellowship because this is what I would like to do, this, this, and that. Then I ask them to put it in writing and send me an email with that or a text or just give me a hard copy. And next time we have the class, I will stay after class and sit down, and go through the steps, and give them advice—what steps are necessary and what steps to eliminate. And several of my students have been successful. It’s interesting to see that after the Fulbright scholarship, three of the Fulbright recipients wanted to become doctors, and they did.
MW: That must be very fulfilling for you—
JC: Yes.
MW: —to know you were instrumental
JC: A teacher feels so fulfilled when they see the results mirrored in their students— in the students’ achievements as they fulfill their dreams and as they follow in your steps. And so I’ve had a lot of wonderful students. So. And I am more proud of them than I am of me because they’re like my “second children,” so to speak.
MW: That’s wonderful. Tell us in general just some—you’ve lived here in Utah now for twenty-five years, did you say?
JC: Correct.
MW: So, just understanding the culture and the area and—give us some general Utah women advice. What would you advise Utah women today? Not in any one particular area, but just in general. What do you hope to see women improve in Utah? How to improve? Or how to negotiate and navigate their lives? Any general advice?
JC: Yes, I feel that the women in Utah try too hard to be perfect. They should consider themselves human, and as a human person, you can achieve only a
Utah Women’s Walk: Julia Caswell 23 certain amount, and be happy with what you’re achieving! Celebrate your achievement. Don’t immediately jump to a conclusion that you’re not good enough. Yes, you are good enough, but maybe not at this point. Maybe a little later you will be better. And so always remember, “Good, better, best. Let us never rest, till our good is better, and our better best.” But, you don’t jump from good to best; you have to go through different steps. So I feel that a woman should first be fulfilled herself before she fulfills the dreams of her children and of her husband, and that they should work together with their partners, with their husbands, and come to an understanding, and achieve together what they have set out to achieve. Have common goals; literally celebrate your achievement, I would say.
MW: That’s great advice, isn’t it?
DP: Yes, wonderful.
MW: Good advice. I’m glad we asked that again. Good, very good. Well, thank you for your time.
JC: Thank you!
MW: What a pleasure and an honor to meet you and have you here. And when you mentioned your Fulbright scholars—are they—that you helped get into the Fulbright program, are they UVU students or BYU students or a combination—
JC: BYU.
MW: BYU students.
JC: BYU. I had—a long time ago, I had one from UVU I encouraged, but I don’t know whether he went on to getting it, so I remember that one student. You always remember the best. (laughter)
MW: That’s true. Well, thank you so much.
[01:35:37] End of interview
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