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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 Muriel Allridge by Aaron Welch November 8, 2011 Utah Women’s Walk TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET Interviewee: Muriel Allridge Interviewer: Aaron Welch Place of Interview: George Sutherland Archives, UVU, Orem, Utah Date of Interview: 08 November 2011 Recordist: Michele Welch Recording Equipment: Zoom Audio Recorder H4n Panasonic HD Video Camera AG-HM C709 Transcription Equipment: Panasonic Transcriber RR-830 Transcribed by: Kimberly Williamson Audio Transcription Edit: Lisa McMullin Reference: MA = Muriel Allridge (Interviewee) AW = Aaron Welch (Interviewer) MW = Michele Welch (Interviewer) DA = Denise Alexander (Interviewer) Brief Description of Contents: Muriel Allridge talks about her fond memories of growing up on a farm in Emery, Utah, and having a mother who was a good example to model. She tells of her childhood love for ice skating and playing the piano. She explains meeting her husband Lee Allridge and how they loved dancing. She recalls doing the bookkeeping for Lee’s plumbing business and raising six children. She also shares how difficult her pregnancies were, in association with having multiple miscarriages, and finally being blessed in her forties with two daughters. She concludes with describing the difficulty of losing her husband early in life, her various acts of service associated with the LDS church, caring for her aging parents and her admiration and love for her family. NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as uh and false starts and stops in conversations are not included in this transcript. Changes by interviewee are incorporated in the text. All additions to transcript are noted with brackets. Clarifications and additional information are footnoted. Audio Transcription [00:48] Beginning of interview AW: My name is Aaron Welch. This is Tuesday, November 8, 2011. I am at the Utah Valley University, George Sutherland Archives in Orem, Utah, interviewing Muriel Allridge for the purpose of the Utah Women’s Walk. Today we are going to be talking about Muriel’s life and her contributions to life in the state of Utah. All right, Grandma, to start off, tell me about your early childhood. Where were your born and where did you grow up and things like that? MA: I was born in the Salt Lake City LDS Hospital on December 16, 1932. We lived on a farm, and I don’t know how long my parents lived there. They lived out in Sugarhouse, [UT] but the Depression came and it affected many families. AW: How long did you live in the Salt Lake area? MA: Until I was six month old. AW: Okay. MA: Then when I was six months old, my dad had a good successful chicken business out in Sugarhouse area. Then the bottom just fell, you know. The Depression affected him and Mom as well and my older siblings. So they moved back to Emery [UT]. Ellis was the only one who was born in Emery. The others were all my older siblings: three brothers and three sisters. I had Wells, my older brother, then Marcella, my sister, then Jim, my brother, and Richine, my sister, and Reila, my sister, and myself and Ellis, my younger brother, so there were seven. AW: So you were second to the youngest? MA: Second to the youngest, so three brothers and three sisters and myself. AW: What was your relationship with all of them like? What was it like growing up with that many siblings? MA: You know, I just had good memories of them. It seemed like we just had a great family. Being almost the youngest, I know they spoiled me. I looked up to my siblings, and I just have a lot of happy memories. AW: When you moved down to Emery you lived on a farm, is that right? MA: We did. After that then my dad moved us all with the exception of Ellis. He was born in Emery after we moved there. My dad had a farm or bought a farm. I just had a great Utah Women’s Walk: Muriel Allridge 2 experience. I was just a typical farm girl from the very beginning. I can remember having a horse to ride. I had my special Persian longhaired cats. MW: What was the cat’s name, Mom? What were the cats’ names? MA: Bemew. (laughs) AW: Bemew? MA: I named him Bemew. He was a Persian cat and I loved him. We also had a dog. His name was Brownie. AW: Brownie? MA: Really neat names, huh? (laughs) AW: Did you have to do any chores around the farm? MA: You know, I did. I milked the cows, and the reason I did was at the time, my brothers would be involved in activities at Ferron High School. So when they were involved in those things then quite often I would have to milk some of the cows. I took them to the pasture, and that’s how I got strong fingers so I could play the piano. (laughter) MA: I guess I was a tom girl besides. I had two sisters. Richine. Oh, never would she do anything out in the yard. I enjoyed it so. I even helped plant the garden. AW: That’s good. What did your mom do? Did she teach school? MA: My mother was a second-grade teacher as they got married. She and dad got married when they were twenty-four. So they'd gotten their education, but Dad didn’t like teaching. He went to other things, but my mom was a second-grade teacher. She taught I don’t know how many years. I need to learn what that was. Should I tell you about later on when she taught me? AW: Yeah, absolutely. MA: It was during the war. The war was on [World War II]. AW: What grade were you in when she taught you? MA: Fifth and sixth grade. AW: Oh, she taught you in both of them? MA: Both grades. Uh-huh. There were so many men that were called to the war effort, World War II. Therefore, my mother—they called her and another teacher—another lady—that Utah Women’s Walk: Muriel Allridge 3 had taught before. They started teaching because there just weren’t any men. And so I just have great memories of that. I'll tell you a little bit about it if you would like me too. AW: Yeah. MA: My mother, you would think it would be a hard thing to have her as my teacher. But, you know, I don’t have any bad memories about it. I think I got along pretty well. I especially remember—she also taught Ellis in the fifth and sixth grade. She would always take us over for a candy bar, a treat after school. So that was something that we looked forward to. It was a great thing. I just had good memories of her. I can't think of any girlfriend problems that would say, Oh, you’re your mother’s teacher’s pet. I don’t think that it really was an issue. [09:37] AW: What did you do for fun with your friends growing up? MA: Well actually, my special thing was ice-skating. I was a good ice skater even if I say so. We had a little pond just near us. My sister and I got figure skates for Christmas. It was our first year that we got figure skates. We didn't get much else besides that because they were expensive. We skated on this little pond and then later some of the dads made ponds. They would freeze over ice so we had a bigger place. This place was really quite small, but that's where I learned to skate to begin with. We had some good ponds to skate on. AW: How long did you skate for? Just a few years growing up? MA: Oh, for a long time I skated. I don’t know how long. I loved to ice skate. That was my favorite thing really. I didn't roller skate, but I really liked to ice skate. AW: Is there one experience from your early beginnings that you think prepared you for your life as mother and a homemaker? MA: Well I had a good example to follow. My mother—she was an excellent cook. She made all of my clothes in the beginning, in my younger years. She taught me to pray, fast with family members. I remember her being such a great neighbor. She was always helping the poor people and the needy people. I remember her giving one of the neighbors our old kitchen table and chairs. She was just a very good example of serving others. AW: Tell us about your experiences in playing the piano. [12:30] (Michele Welch is instructing Muriel to turn and face the camera) MA: In playing the piano—well, Mother was always wanting us to learn to play the piano or Utah Women’s Walk: Muriel Allridge 4 anything else actually. She was just a good teacher. I learned to play the piano at an early age. I know she couldn’t talk some of my siblings into doing it. I learned to play, and some of the others did somewhat. She decided that I was the one that she was going to focus on. I became a good pianist and worked hard at it. She had me go to the very best teachers, and amazingly, we had some really good teachers.

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